Minuets in B Minor
by Bar Sira
Summary: What a difference one word can make...
1. Private, Straight, Barely, Eidetic

**Author's Note:** This is Lucillia's fault. A few years back, that most prolific of fanfictional scribes posted a pair of stories under the general title "Minuet", describing what would happen if various ff malapropisms ("minuet" for "minute", for instance, hence the name) were to occur literally in the Harry Potter world. Now, of course, there are far more than two such suggestive sentences that have appeared in this fandom; therefore, since Lucillia has so far rejected all invitations to extend the series further, I have elected to take matters into my hands. Following are some of the results - complete with attributions, should anyone wish to examine these inspired inadvertencies in their original contexts. (Though it should be noted that at least five of the passages in question have already been corrected by their authors, and others may well have been by the time you read this story - nor can I promise, of course, that none of the authors will delete their stories or change their pen names at some future date.)

A word about technique. Obviously, none of these vignettes actually reflect the intentions of the authors quoted, and in many cases the whole context of the passage has been radically altered. However, I have made it an ironclad rule that any direct quote will be attributed to the same character in the Minuet as in the original story, and any singular pronoun will refer to the same person or thing. (This applies to OCs as well as to canon characters - hence the apparently unnecessary inclusion, in various places, of characters unknown to Rowling.)

 **Disclaimer:** _Harry Potter_ belongs to J. K. Rowling; the passages quoted belong to the authors named (except for "Leant's", which is an attempted quote from Nick Cave); the cover image is by Filippo Baratti; a list of real historical personages and significantly employed texts can be found on my profile; various other allusions to works and persons not my own abound. The stories themselves, however, are strictly my own work.

 **Other "Minuets" collections:** Since no-one can claim that the Harry Potter subcategory has a monopoly on grammar and spelling errors, it has seemed appropriate to extend this series into other fandoms. If you enjoy these tales, therefore, you may also wish to look into "Minuets in Aeolian Mode" (Percy Jackson and the Olympians); "Minuets Assemble!" (Avengers [Movies]); "Minuets by Brain Matter" (NCIS); and "Minuets by John Williams" (Star Wars).

* * *

 _"We have [decided], by that I mean Professor McGonagall and I, that it would be best to have a privet sorting ceremony."_ –Brie Da Silva, "Slytherin's Saint"

"All right, ladies and gents," said Professor Sprout. "Each of you should have three bowls within arm's reach: one pewter, one copper, and one porcelain. Common privet leaves go in the pewter bowl, glossy privet in the copper, Japanese privet in the porcelain. Miss Koray is waiting in the entrance hall, and will be admitted inside as soon as each leaf is in its proper bowl. Begin."

"Remind me again why we do this every time a transfer student arrives?" Harry remarked as the assembled students set to sorting the foliage that covered the four House tables.

Hermione shrugged. " _Hogwarts, A History_ doesn't say," she said. "Some half-remembered pagan custom, I imagine. –No, Ron, that one's Japanese."

* * *

 _"Harry and Neville were the only strait boys in their year in Gryffindor."_ –azamystic, "No Regrets"

"You're Gibraltareño, too?" said Kike Alfarero.

Névil Fondolargo nodded. "My grandparents were born on the Rock," he said. "They moved to England in the '60s, and my father and I were both born there; when I was still a baby, though, Abuelita moved back to Gibraltar, and I… well, I went with her."

Kike knew better than to probe. "Well," he said, throwing his arm around Névil's shoulder with a grin, "that's good news to me. I didn't expect to meet another Strait boy in the whole school, and here you are in my own year and House. Material for a beautiful friendship, _¿verdad?_ "

* * *

 _"20 years ago, society collapsed. There was no other word for it; one day it was still there, barley being kept upright, the next day there was nothing."_ –Terrific Lunacy, "Rebuilt"

"How could this have happened, Dumbledore?" said Fudge, his face white. "The Stalk of Treffynnon had fourteen centuries of magical protection supporting it; ever since Math foretold that wizarding civilisation would fall when it fell, the spells keeping it upright have been maintained religiously. It couldn't just have fallen over in the wind!"

"No," said Dumbledore, his face grim. "But if some powerful wizard attacked it – one whose power rivalled that of the greatest wizards of history, and who had a vested interest in plunging our world into chaos – that would be another matter."

Fudge paled, if possible, yet further. "You… you mean…?"

Dumbledore nodded. "I tried to warn you, Cornelius," he said. "I told you that Voldemort was planning some terrible enormity, and that we must join forces to have any hope of foiling him. It was not done, and now…" He sighed, suddenly old and weary. "Now we must endure the deluge."

And he turned and strode from the field, not sparing a backward glance as Fudge broke down and wept over the broken, withered stalk of barley.

* * *

 _"Having an edict memory wasn't abnormal by any means, but having magic made Harry's memory even more impressive."_ –Volunteer95, "What He Saw"

"Ha!" Ron exulted. "So much for your tying the game up, Malfoy! Attack 8, plus my three tokens and Luna's one: since she has the Macron power, that gives us 15 points, and you only have 13. Off to the warp with you!"

"Not so fast, Weasley," said Draco smoothly, laying down another card next to his Attack 10. "This Cosmic Zap says Lovegood's token only counts for one. That means you only have 12 points, and my attack prevails, giving me my fifth out-of-system base and…"

"Hang on," said Harry, causing all four players to turn in his direction. "Ernie, aren't there only two Cosmic Zaps in the deck?"

"Of course there are, Harry," said Ernie. "But Malfoy's the Vulch, so he gets to play edicts again after others have played them. So of course you'd expect to see it more than twice."

"Not more than three times, though," said Harry. "Not when he played the first Cosmic Zap himself. Don't you remember? The first time he challenged Luna, he had to Zap her to win his base; then he scavenged the other one when Ron Zapped you rather than take your Compromise card, and played it on Ron on his next turn. And you haven't reshuffled yet, so…"

Ron turned and gaped at Draco. "You cheating slimeball!" he said.

Draco reddened, but stood his ground. "Anyone can make accusations," he said. "Proving them's another…"

But Ernie had already pulled out his wand, and pointed it at the two cards. " _Reverte Stationi!_ " he shouted – and, sure enough, the Cosmic Zap flew up off the table and slid itself neatly into the middle of the discard pile.

"Fewmets," Draco muttered.

"Is that what they teach you in Death-Eater training, Malfoy?" Ron demanded. "Lesson One, Killing Muggles; Lesson Two, Palming Cards?"

"I think he should lose his power for that," Luna remarked.

"Lose his power?" Ernie repeated. "We should throw him out into the snow, and his system hexagon after him!"

"Try it, Macmillan!" said Draco, pulling out his own wand. "You think you're tough? You think you're…"

At about this juncture, Harry found it judicious to wander quietly away from the table, reflecting how right he had been to think that, when one played Cosmic Encounter with a Slytherin, one could always use a kibitzer with a magically enhanced edict memory.


	2. Chudley, Casualties, Yule, Goblets

_"Anyway, I think the Cuddly Cannons have a good chance of winning this year, seeing as Ginny isn't playing anymore."_ –Hobbitpal, "Way It's Meant to Be"

"Okay, you bunch of mayflies, listen up!" said Tony Zeno. "This is our year, right? With Mrs Potter off the Speaking Eagles, there's no team that can stand between us and the big prize. All we've got to do is keep in shape, stay hungry…"

"And find a better mascot," Peleus Edson muttered, glancing at the paraphernalia lying about that was festooned with images of a beaming cartoon culverin, its spindly arms outstretched to offer the entire world a big hug.

His sister and fellow Chaser Thetis gave him a wounded look. "I _like_ the Cuddly Cannon," she said.

Peleus rolled his eyes. "You would."

"Enough chit-chat, you two!" Zeno barked. "Come on, folks, get on your bleeding brooms and let's see how champions practice!"

* * *

 _"How can either side claim to hold the high ground when their oh-so-righteous voices die amidst the screams of the causalities?"_ –KJmom, "Salvation"

"Cadmus, the imperative's perfectly clear," said Antioch Peverell. "We who have magic in our bones are under an obligation to comprehend magic itself as fully as we can; wandlore is the summation of all magic; therefore, if a man can construct the ultimate wand, it's incumbent on him to do it. To use the Unction of Dis in any other fashion would be a dereliction of our duty as wizards."

Cadmus shook his head. "No, Antioch, I can't agree," he said. "We aren't only wizards; we are also, and more fundamentally, mortal men. Long before we cast our first inadvertent spells, we were bound in the shackles of corruption and death, and loosening them must always be our first duty. Isn't it so, Ignotus? –Ignotus?"

But the youngest Peverell had long since left them. His native clairaudience, which their recent encounter with the Lord of Shades had only amplified, had caused the fine moral sentiments of both his brothers to be drowned out by the noise of their own future agencies upon history; when Antioch spoke, he heard only the cries of a thousand murdered wizards, and Cadmus's arguments were lost among the groans of countless limbo-stranded souls. So he had fled away from them into the woods, not caring where he went or what happened to him, but only desiring to escape from the screams of his brothers' causalities.

* * *

 _"For her Yale Ball in her fourth year, she ended up asking Neville to the ball."_ –Dragons-Twilight1992, "Indigo Laura Bones"

"You look beautiful tonight, Indigo," said Neville sincerely.

Indigo laughed, and rolled her eyes. "Thanks, Neville, that's sweet of you," she said, "but you don't have to pretend. Next you're going to tell me that this getup brings out my eyes." She shook her head. "Seriously, what madman decided that the Triwizard Tournament needed a ball where everyone has to dress up as a horn-swivelling goat out of _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_?"

Neville shrugged. "Well, tradition is tradition," he said.

And Indigo, whose family still celebrated her dead parents' birthdays, could hardly argue with that. With a resigned sigh, she tucked a stray lock of her hair back under her headpiece, and took Neville's outstretched arm. "Well, Mr Longbottom," she said, "shall we to the Yale Ball?"

* * *

 _"'I shouldn't give you any just for your complaining,' he mumbled as he took the four giblets from James and set them on the floor."_ –madamwolf, "So, Wait, What Year Is This?"

"What?" James exclaimed, his face a picture of theatrical shock. "You'd deprive me of the luck that the Christmas turkey giblets bestow? Now, when Lily's finally starting to soften? You're heartless, Padfoot."

"I don't know that I really believe in these superstitions, you know," Peter commented. "I mean, my mum's birthday's in May, and she married a wizard, so…"

"I never said they all work," said James. "But if someone's offering me a year of good fortune just for eating a bird's gizzard off the floor with my teeth, I'm going to take it. I mean, what can it hurt?"

"Well," said Remus judiciously, "that would depend on when the floor was last cleaned. But this one doesn't look too bad, so I'm game."

"Okay, then," said Sirius, having finished laying out the little grey lumps of poultry. "Hands behind your heads, and dive. Remember, if your fingers touch your giblet once it's laid, the luck turns sour."

So the four Marauders clutched their occipital areas, lowered their heads, and snapped up the turkey innards in front of them. And they all aced their final exams that year, and Lily did finally go with James to Hogsmeade in November, so perhaps there was something in the old witches' tale after all.


	3. Minister, Silver, Hopeless, Tracks

_"Tomorrow a private train, courtesy of the Minster, would take her to London at night."_ –AshtonTheSlut, "Vampires, Magic, and Bears! OH MY!"

Athena chewed nervously at her fingernail as the small train rattled through the darkened streets of Croydon Borough. She was grateful to Canon Boswell, of course, for arranging all this, yet she couldn't quite silence the voice of doubt in her mind; could he really rid her of the vampiric taint that had marked her family for six hundred years? Surely, it would take more than good intentions and a clerical collar to achieve that – and then, according to her friend Leona, the fellow wasn't even a real priest to begin with.

With an effort, she wrenched her mind out of this slough of despond, and focussed her attention on the landscape outside. There was Wandle Park, just in front of her; the train should be stopping right about… yes, there it went.

She picked up her valise, thanked the conductor, and disembarked; then, with the superhuman swiftness that she hoped not to have when the sun rose, she ran down Rectory Grove and through the Old Town, till she saw the great mediæval edifice rising before her. The Canon was standing on the steps, a booklet of exorcisms in his hand; as she ran up, he gave her a weary yet genuine smile.

"Well, Miss Aludrac," he said, "welcome to Croydon Minster."

* * *

 _"A sliver gown, a brilliant smile, her engagement ring proudly displaying our colours…"_ –kumikoblue, "A Wedding"

The Wedding March thundered through the church, and Severus raised his eyes, hardly daring to hope that it was really happening. But, yes, there she was: on the arm of her dentist father, her radiant happiness visible even through her veil, Hermione Granger came down the aisle – slowly, to be sure, but then he knew that she could only take the smallest steps without having a thousand tiny shards of glass dig painfully into her flesh.

Not for the first time, he shook his head in wonder. Not merely that he had won the heart of such a woman; that he had accepted as at least vaguely explicable in some degree. But who would have thought, knowing the first thing about Hermione Granger, that she would have actually wanted to get married in such a symbol of feminine masochism as his mother's sliver gown?

He let out a resigned sigh. Clearly, inexplicability was of the very essence of womanhood.

* * *

 _"Stupid twins! I am_ not _a hopless-cause hero!"_ –wingsrookie, "101 Ways to Say Thank You"

Fred Weasley rose from his seat, and silence fell over the Gryffindor common room. "Your attention, please, ladies and gentlemen," he said. "As some of you may know, today is the three hundredth anniversary of the death of Xerxes Younghusband, the great Roundhead headmaster under whose tenure Hogwarts briefly became a model of Puritan austerity and discipline. On such an occasion, it seems only right that we should recognise and salute the great man's spiritual goddaughter: the last of the modern Puritans, the greatest magical stick-in-the-mud in twelve generations, and, I am pleased to say, a very close friend of my own – Miss Hermione Granger."

Hermione jerked her head upward. "What?" she demanded.

"I concur!" said George, leaping to his own feet. "Miss Granger's success in purging Hogwarts of any form of revelry or pleasure is without parallel in modern times; should old X.Y. be present with us today, it cannot be doubted that he would embrace her as a witch after his own heart. Or perhaps not quite embrace her, since that might be construed as sinful enthusiasm, but…"

"George, don't be an ass!" Hermione snapped. "You know perfectly well that it's nothing to do with Puritanism; you saw me dancing at the Yule Ball with the best of them. But when you plot to make the whole of Slytherin House dance naked on the lawn in midwinter, then I as a prefect _have_ to report that to Professor McGonagall!"

"Oh, don't be so modest, Hermione," Fred chuckled. "We all know it's the great dream of your heart to close every record hop in Britain, and you shouldn't be ashamed to own it. As a great Muggle author said, when we have discarded the fancy that Puritanism was rational, it will be its glory that it was fanatical – and you're the most glorious fanatic we've ever met."

"Fred," said Hermione plaintively. "George, please… it's not… really, I don't…"

She looked around at the rest of her Housemates for support, but it was plain that their sympathy lay with the twins. With a little sob, she leaped up and ran for her dormitory, with Fred's voice echoing behind her: "To Miss Hermione Granger! Three cheers for the Hopless-Cause Hero!"

* * *

 _"A few hours later, Draco Malfoy walked back into my room. His face was covered in tear tracts and he collapsed next to me on my bed."_ –Destiny's Horse, "Breathe Me Back to Life"

"You wouldn't believe the day I've had, Granger," he muttered.

I smiled. "I don't know about that," I said. "Let me guess: you tried to distribute our latest tract among the Fluxters of Gilliam Close, and they, being narrow-mindedly unimpressed with the idea that house-elf tears would be as potent as phoenix tears if it weren't for millennia of magical oppression, threw a handful of copies back in your face so hard that they fused with your skin. Yes?"

Draco cocked an eyebrow. "It's happened to you, too, then?"

"Once or twice," I said, and took my wand from the bedside table. "Well, let's see what we can do about it. Hold still."


	4. Git's, Lay, Filled, In Sight

_"Did you get that Gits essay done before detention tonight?"_ –Marioluver, "The Red Rose"

"Excellent work, Harry," said Professor Lupin, handing back his essay on "Gits: Some Effective Defensive Measures" with a large red "100" in the corner. "The best treatment of the subject I've seen all year."

Harry smiled broadly. "Well, the credit's not all mine, Professor," he said. "I couldn't have done it without all the field experience Malfoy's given me the past few years."

Draco, from his nearby desk, made an obscene gesture in response, and Lupin promptly deducted 10 points from Slytherin. Harry leaned back contentedly; life was good.

* * *

 _"I guess I never knew what lied beneath my skin. What lied beneath was the real Hermione Granger."_ –cute but kinda deadly, "What Lies Beneath"

The dermal layer beneath Hermione's feet suddenly opened up, and she tumbled out into the open air in a shower of blood and lymph. As she plummeted toward the (to her) enormous bathroom sink below, she looked up to see her own face looming enormously over her, and mouthing the words, _"Godspeed, Cora Peterson."_

A pang of conscience went through her; it seemed so wrong to deceive one's own phantom self in such a way. But what could she have said? _"I am the true Hermione Granger; you are an illusory part of an illusory world, which was created last Monday by a disgruntled ex-Unspeakable, and which, if it isn't erased by midnight tonight, will destroy both itself and reality. Therefore I must escape from your bloodstream, in which the upheaval of space and time has trapped me, and…"_

No, it wouldn't have done. Still, it was rather poignant to think that this phantom Hermione, in the few hours remaining to her, would never know what she had helped to do, or who had really been lying – in more than one sense – beneath her skin.

* * *

 _"Everyone who starts out in their [sic] seventh year at Hogwarts is immediately transferred to a Muggle-felled school."_ –Witches Rune, summary to "Wizards Go Muggles?"

"Why Salamanca?" Voldemort enquired.

"Surely that's obvious, My Lord," said Snape. "Salamanca College was burnt down by the local Muggles three separate times during the 17th Century, on account of the old slander about Satan being the headmaster. You will surely grant that Hogwarts's returning seventh years, who have spent nearly their whole school career listening to Dumbledore's fatuous idealism, badly need their eyes opened to the true nature of the Muggle vermin; what better way than by spending their final N.E.W.T. year at a Muggle-felled school?"

Voldemort spent a moment or two considering this, and then smiled darkly. "An excellent plan, Severus," he said. "See you to it."

Snape bowed and left the room, suppressing a sigh of relief. If Dumbledore was right in trusting Headmistress Gutiérrez, most of Potter's friends should now be safe from the Carrows – except for a few who were only sixth years, such as the Weasley girl. But he could work out a protection for her after he'd had a stiff drink.

* * *

 _"Altogether, the outfit looked impressive, all sleek black lines and not a wrinkle of fabric insight."_ –Glue Project, "Silent Butterfly"

"Tom," said Acte Posener, eyeing her friend quizzically, "where did you get that outfit?"

"Made it," said Tom Riddle proudly. "Over the summer holidays. Impressive, don't you think?"

Acte forced herself not to scream. "Tom," she said, "you can't do that sort of thing with gulon's-hair fustian. It's one of the most temperamental materials there is, and it naturally wants to billow outward; if you try to force it into sleek lines, you only make yourself look like a hare-brained bungler without a wrinkle of insight into your fabric."

"Well, who wants fabric insight?" Tom argued. "We're wizards! We don't need to understand and respect the nature of a thing before we impose our wills on it! _Nos omnia paret!_ A sound magician is a mighty god! And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to the Halloween feast."

He turned and strode sleekly from the common room, his costume straining ever so faintly away from him as he went. With a sigh, Acte withdrew her wand and followed after him; when his new garb's quiddity avenged itself – as it would, sooner or later – it would be as well for him to have a friend with some common sense around.


	5. Creak, Beetle, A Damn Sign, Stuffed

_"Hermione heard the door creek open."_ –xoxomrshmalfoyxoxo, "It's You, It's Addiction"

"Oh, Ron, I'm glad you're back," she said, jumping up and rushing over to where her ginger comrade was descending the ladder. "I've been going over Kreacher's reports, and I think I know where the last Horcrux… oh, no, Ron, careful!"

But the warning came too late; as the aperture slid shut again, Ron inadvertently walked straight into the path of the falling stream, and yelped as several pints of water poured themselves down upon him. His expression, as the flow tapered off and he turned to her, was at once so pitiful and so self-consciously stoic that Hermione had to bite hard on her cheek to keep from giggling. "You'll never learn, will you?" she said. "Here."

Ron accepted the towel with good grace, if a touch of exasperation. "Honestly, I don't know what the point of this design is," he said, frowning up at the ceiling. "If we have to fight You-Know-Who from a hidden underground lair, why not have a door tree, or a door boulder, or something sensible like that? Why a door _creek_?"

Hermione shrugged. "Take it up with Aberforth," she said. "Anyway, as I was saying…"

* * *

 _"Is there something more interesting than Black Beatle Eyes and Monkshood under the table, Miss Granger?"_ –Mimi-san, "My Beautiful Mess"

"Sorry, Professor," said Hermione, straightening herself hastily. "Dropped my quill."

"Five points from Gryffindor for undue clumsiness," said Snape without missing a beat. "Now, as I was saying," he continued, turning back to the blackboard, "while Billy Preston was not actually a member of the Muggle group known as the Beatles, he did share billing on one of their records, and it is known that the members contemplated inviting him to join them shortly before their breakup. It is therefore likely that, if you were to remove one of his eyes, convert that one into several via the Plethora Charm, and seethe them in a broth of monkshood, the result would be as fine a Cat-Confusing Potion as any ever brewed. This principle also applies…"

Hermione shuddered involuntarily. She knew, of course, that Petrastric Alchemy was one of the great theoretic breakthroughs of modern Potions, and any decent seven-year course in the subject had to devote at least one day to it, whether or no anyone ever expected it to be practically useful. But, still, the idea of a Hogwarts professor, in a world still menaced by pure-blood fanaticism, calmly speculating about the mutilation of famous Muggles… maybe Harry was right about Snape, after all.

Still, knowledge was knowledge – so, with an effort, she wrenched her attention back to the lecture, and her hand resumed its automatic note-taking as Snape elucidated the miracles that would be possible to someone who could get hold of Smokey Robinson's big toe.

* * *

 _"Draco looked toward the darkening sky, and he yelled, 'Just give me damn sign!'"_ –fixingtoshine, "Happy Birthday, Hermione"

But no response from Providence was forthcoming, and Draco scowled and kicked at a convenient pinecone. He could, at that moment, have been snugly curled up in the Manor with a good book and a cup of tea; instead, here he was, wandering aimlessly over a dismal Norfolk heath, lugging around a crossbow that seemed to get heavier with every step he took, and unable to spot the faintest hint of footprints, droppings, shed feathers, or sign of any other description whatever.

 _Note to self,_ he thought. _Once I get back home, Cormac McLaggen is no longer welcome in the Manor. I don't care if Noddy has to put some savage elf hoodoo on him or what, but he's never getting me on another nogtail hunt as long as I… was that a raindrop? That had better not have been a raindrop!_

It was.

* * *

 _"With both of [us] doing it, we won another big stuff animal; it was a big panda bear."_ –sjt1988, "It's Hurt"

"You see, this is what I love about wizarding fairs," said Dominique, as she and Urson walked down the midway with their prizes lumbering along behind them. "Just a little bit of eye-hand coordination, and you can win Bucephalus, Lonesome George, and Ling-Ling, in quick succession."

Urson nodded. "Yes, our carnies do take pride in giving away big-stuff animals," he said. "I still don't see why you didn't want to try for Sue, though."

"Because I already have an uncle who raises dragons," said Dominique. "No household needs a Hungarian Horntail _and_ a Tyrannosaurus in the back yard; that's just asking for trouble. –Come on, let's go get some cotton candy."


	6. Talking, With, Shiny, Compliment

_"I do not tolerate students taking in my class."_ –QUEEN EMPATH, "High School Love"

"You don't, sir?" said a Hufflepuff in the back.

"No," said Snape firmly. "Your role as students is to be mystified and awestruck by my brilliance; if any of you should actually understand a single fact from one of my lectures, I will regard it as deliberate insolence. Now, everyone open your books to page 57 and don the most fish-like, uncomprehending stares you can, or it's detention for the lot of you."

"Can you beat that?" Harry whispered to Ron as they and their fellow students reached into their book bags. "Your brother was right; the teachers here really are mad."

Ron shrugged. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "I think they're just more honest than most."

* * *

 _"Ron and Hermione screamed of fright as Harry closed his eyes, muttering something under his breath."_ –sayribelle, "I Think It's Going to Rain Today"

"Fright!" Hermione shrieked. "Most pure and invigorating of emotions, without which we should all be prey for the sabre-toothed tigers!"

"Fright!" Ron bawled. "Proper response of the human soul toward future evils difficult and irresistible!"

"Fright!" the two of them hollered in unison. "Supremely necessary exercise of the adrenal gland, under the coordination of the amygdalae! How impoverished their lives whom sub-cortical brain damage prevents from experiencing the giddy thrill, the cleansing rush of…"

Harry shut his eyes and groaned. "Sheesh," he muttered. "If I'd known they were going to get this overwrought, I would have just let them keep having the hiccups."

* * *

 _"Well, let's go to a music store and get some shinny discs."_ –human bludger, "For the Love of Music"

"Can I help you gentlemen?" Matilda asked the red-headed twins leaning against the counter.

"Yes," said the one on the right, with an air of great seriousness. "We'd like to buy some shinny discs."

Matilda blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Shinny discs," the young man repeated. "That is, discs used to play shinny. Or, to put it another way, the sort of discs that a shinny player might utilise. Artifacts, as it were, pertaining to the game of shinny, the shape of which…"

"You mean pucks?"

"Ah!" said the young man, with a triumphant glance at his brother. "Isn't it wonderful, George, when beauty and intelligence go hand in hand? Yes, miss, we would like to buy pucks. It is pucks, fair damsel, that we desire to purchase. Show us your pucks, O vision of femininity, that we may expend money to secure the ownership thereof."

"I'm sorry, sir," Matilda said, trying desperately not to blush. "This is a music store; we don't sell shinny pucks."

The young man pursed his lips reproachfully. "Oh, come, my dear," he said. "Disingenuousness isn't becoming to one so lovely. If you don't sell shinny pucks –" here he reached for a nearby CD rack and grabbed a brace of items off it "– then what, may I ask, are these?"

"Those are…" Matilda began, and then stopped dead. By all reason, the young man should have been holding two of the Céline Dion CDs that had been on display there for the past three months – yet what he was actually holding, quite unmistakably, were two shinny pucks in CD wrapping, complete with the store tag ("SHINNY DISC – £24.43").

As if in a dream, she took the pucks from his hand, examined them, hefted them, sniffed experimentally at them, and then, with an internal sigh and surrender of all presumptions to sanity, ran her scanner over them and printed up the receipt. "£48.86," she said dully. "Will there be anything else?"

"Yes, actually," the twin called George spoke up. "We'll take one of those curling stones over by the boom boxes, too."

* * *

 _"And I told you that I will never deny a sexy man a complement."_ –LivinlikeAghost, "A Scratch in the Finish"

Ben looked up from his paperwork as Draco entered his office, followed closely by three lumbering trolls whose clubs smelled distinctly of perfume. "Ah, good morning, Draco!" he said, rising and extending a hand. "And to what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Ben, you've got to call off these goons of yours," Draco snapped. "They're terrorising the living daylights out of every girl at Hogwarts. I told you what happened to Parkinson last week, and it's only gotten worse since then; all the Weasley girl did was glance at me on Tuesday, and…"

But Ben was shaking his head firmly. "Sorry, Draco, no can do," he said. "I told you before, and I'll tell you again: the Bachelor Protection Society takes great pride in defending sexy men such as you from the wiles of mulierity, and I'd sooner get married myself (he shuddered dramatically) than deny one his full complement of guards. Isn't that right, Willard?" he said to the nearest of the trolls.

" _Grrraaaaah!_ "

"Precisely." And Ben seated himself again. "Good day, gentlemen."


	7. May, Either, World, Exuded

_"Thank you to all who enjoyed these fanfictions! I will pull [them] and repost them in the collection on Mary 1_ _st_ _."_ –BeautifulHalfBlood, author's note to "Five Birthdays of Sirius Black", "Tanning", and "Sirius Black and the Learnt Lesson"

 _Welcome to_ The Mary Tudor Collection _! In these stories, you will learn what happens when Sirius Black is transported back to the year 1553, and becomes the friend and loyal sidekick of Queen Mary the First of England. Highlights of the collection include:_

 _ **"Tanning":** Stung by King Philip's dismissal of wizards as wand-waving wastrels with no appreciation of honest labour, Sirius apprentices himself to the crotchety old tanner Gilbert Hyde. Hijinks ensue._

 _ **"Sirius Black and the Learnt Lesson":** Enchanting an archway to cause anyone who passes under it to grow antlers is something more than a jolly prank in the 16th Century; Sirius discovers this the hard way._

 _ **"Five Birthdays of Sirius Black":** Four times Sirius spent 17 November as the honoured guest of the Queen – and one time he didn't._

 _In these and nine other unforgettable tales, Renaissance elegance and intrigue mingles with Marauder ebullience to produce an ff experience unlike any other. Don't miss out! Acquaint yourself with_ The Mary Tudor Collection _today!_

* * *

 _"We all knew that no one in Salem had a name with a J that was my age. If they did they were ether in the ground or soon would be."_ –In Pursuit of Magic, "The Spirit of Hollow's Eve"*

"So, Mr. Mayor," said the mysterious little girl, "I understand you've been having some rather unusual civic difficulties lately."

Mayor Levesque snorted. "That's putting it mildly," he said. "In the past three weeks, fully thirteen people in their early teens have walked into Gallows Hill Park, in full view of unimpeachable witnesses, and then simply dissolved into diethyl ether – at least, that's what the police scientists say they've found in the soil. There's no connection between the victims, except that they're all Salem residents, they're all between 13 and 15 years of age, and, for some misbegotten reason, their first names all start with J."

The girl shot a sudden, startled look at him. "Indeed?"

"Absolutely," said Levesque. "Jessica Vaughan, Jodie Meister, Javier Sosa, Jared Pouilaitis… I could rattle off all their names in my sleep by now, and I promise you there's not one exception. It's uncanny."

"More than uncanny," the girl murmured. "Oh, Mancie, why did you have to tell him so much?"

Levesque glanced quizzically at her. "Pardon?"

The girl shook her head. "Never mind," she said. "Listen, I need to make a long-distance call; do you know if there happens to be a working fireplace anywhere in this City Hall of yours?"

* * *

 _"What these two men conversed over was lost on the slumbering child, even as the very things they were discussing would be so integral to the child's future, if not the future of the word itself…"_ –NostalgicTimes, "The Luminary of the Wizarding World"

"So you see, Mr Dursley, there's nothing so very difficult about your task," Dumbledore concluded. "You and your family need only remember to use euphemisms when discussing the concept: 'hence-time', perhaps. And I, for my part, will work to influence the Muggle media so that anyone who utters the word will be demonised as inexcusably bigoted against someone or other; it's remarkable how easy that's becoming, these days."

Vernon Dursley, red-faced and breathing stertorously, seemed unmoved by these reassurances. "Do you mean to tell me," he said, "that my wife and I are expected to take in a curse-scarred freak child so addled in the brain that he'll summon a bag over his head if someone says the word 'future' to him?"

"Precisely," said Dumbledore. "And, of course, whenever he mentions a number, you'll have to multiply it mentally by seventeen and three-eighths." At the look on Vernon's face, he hastened to add, "But, apart from that, he's perfectly all right."

* * *

 _"He eluded an_ atmosphere _, one that made Harry's skin crawl and the hairs on the back of his head stand on end…"_ –VivyPotter, "The Many Harry Potters of Little Hangleton"

"Are we… safe here?" said Harry in a small voice, rubbing the spot on his cheek where the dromozoön had gotten him. (A toenail was starting to emerge there; they would have to do something about that, Voldemort thought, when they got a chance.)

"We're not safe anywhere," he said flatly. "Not while the Wreaker knows that the wizards who spoiled his first-edition _Voyage to Arcturus_ are still alive and sane." He shook his head. "Whatever possessed us to hold a showdown in the sanctum of a science-fiction-obsessed Dark Lord with the power to make reality out of dreams, I can't…"

He broke off abruptly, sniffed the air, and then threw himself onto the ground with lightning speed. "Mentirosan atmosphere!" he hissed. "Down, Potter, quickly! It's slightly less dense than Terrestrial air; if you keep your head low enough, it may…"

But it was too late. The terror-inducing atmosphere of Robert Silverberg's nightmare world had hit Harry full in the face; as Voldemort pulled him down, he saw the telltale pallor and spasmodic shuddering, and knew that he had been infected with the unreasoning fear that haunted Yakoub Nirano Rom throughout five long years of slavery.

He groaned wearily. "Honestly, Potter," he said, "you've got to learn to start eluding these things."

* * *

*Crossover with Rise of the Guardians.


	8. Wretched, Some, Weasley, Foul

**Author's note:** _Yes, I did consider reshuffling this chapter so that it could be called "Some, Foul, Wretched, Weasley", but, as much fun as that would have been, I think this arrangement reads better._

* * *

 _"Draco… Draco, open this retched door… NOW."_ –cocodog, "Control"

With lazy, unhurried movements, Draco rose from his bed, sauntered over to his bedroom door, and pulled it open. "Yes, Father?" he said sweetly.

Lucius, who seemed to be in a generally foul mood, scowled at one of the streaks of hardened dragon sputum that decorated the black-charred portal. "Why do you insist on keeping this foul thing, anyway, Draco?" he said. "Our family funds may have been depleted a bit in the latest round of Ministry bribes, but we're hardly so destitute yet that we can't afford to get you a new door – something in a nice rowan, perhaps, or hawthorn to match your wand, or… well, _anything_ that wasn't retched out by a Norwegian Ridgeback during the infestation three years ago."

Draco shrugged. "Call me sentimental."

Lucius snorted. "Well, I'll call you worse than that, young man," he said, "if you don't come down and give your grandmother a kiss goodbye…"

* * *

 _"Looking for sum action?"_ –kristen granger, summary to "Once Up on a Time in NY"

"Good morning, everyone!" Professor Vector caroled as she swept into the Hogwarts faculty lounge, with a movement that had several of the characteristics of a pirouette.

Professor McGonagall glanced at the young arithmancer, and arched an eyebrow. "Well, it clearly is for one of us, anyway," she said with a chuckle. "What's happened, Theano? I haven't seen you so sprightly since the Headmaster tapped you to write last year's Christmas-Exchange list."

"I'll tell you what's happened, Minerva," said Vector, beaming. "I – I, Theano Cartesia Vector – not one of my predecessors, not someone with the same name as mine, but _I_ – have been invited to join the Witches of Maria Agnesi at their 37th annual conference, beginning two weeks from Thursday in Rochester, New York."

"Really?" said McGonagall. "Well, that sounds nice."

"Nice?" said Vector. "It's _glorious_. And look at this year's topic!" She pulled a flier out from under her robes, and held it up for all to see. "'On the Derivation of Power-Series Representations for Transcendental Arithmantical Functions, with Particular Emphasis on the 18th-Century Wizarding Annotations to Maclaurin's _Treatise of Fluxions_ '. Of course, the 18th Century isn't my area of expertise, so I'll have to do some research on it when I get there – but, once I'm up on the time, I'll have a whole weekend ahead of me full of nonstop sum action!" And she pumped a fist in the air. "Yowza!"

McGonagall laughed. "Well, good for you, Theano," she said. "I can't pretend that's something I would be interested in, but I'm glad you've found a place to look for it."

"Thanks, Minerva," said Vector. "I'll bring you a mug or something when I come back."

"That will be lovely."

* * *

 _"Draco turned when he heard Wesley shouting."_ –bushlaboo, "Sworn Enemies"

"But are there not some among you," John Wesley thundered, "that did once renounce this conformity to the world, and dress in every point neat and plain, suitable to your profession? Why then did you not persevere therein? Why did you turn back from the good way? Did you contract an acquaintance, perhaps a friendship, with some that were still fond of dress? It is no wonder…"

Draco rolled his eyes, and turned back to his companion. "Nothing," he said. "Just some mad Muggle preacher. So what were you saying?"

"I was saying," said Blaise, "that, if we ever want to see our own century again, the first thing we need to do is get back to Hogwarts. We can't take the Express, of course – no locomotives in 1784 – but there must be a carriage service or something that could get us there."

"Right," said Draco, digging into his wallet. "Here's five Galleons; put a glamour on them to hide the date, and see how far they'll get you. I'll be waiting here."

"…Now, to-day, before the heart is hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, cut off, at one stroke, that sinful friendship with the ungodly, and…"

"Or," said Draco, with another sour glance at the father of Methodism, "on second thought, maybe I'll go with you."

* * *

 _"'Pissant is a fowl word, is it not?' Narcissa asked."_ –dracosgirl2515, "No Longer Just a Mudblood: The Sequel"

"Not that I ever heard," said Andromeda. "I was under the impression that it was a Muggle term of abuse – something to do with urination, I think."

"No, no," Narcissa insisted. "It's a fowl, I'm sure of it. Big, plump body, ringed neck, funny red things around the eyes…"

"You mean a pheasant?"

Narcissa blinked. "A what?"

"Pheasant," said Andromeda. "P-H-E-A-S-A-N-T."

"Oh." Narcissa frowned down at her parchment. "Well, yes, that would explain why Kettleburn gave me a T on this essay."


	9. Summary, Whiz, Mating, Affected

_"(Story much better than summery)"_ –Vampyres, summary to "The Riddle Triplets"

"'Later the dog whined loudly,'" Tom Riddle intoned, turning the final page of the Muggle volume as his three children listened with wide-eyed attention. "'And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky; then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food providers and fire providers.'" And he shut the book with a broad, sinister smile.

Nadia shuddered with delight. "That was beautiful, Father!" she exclaimed.

"You can say that again," said Niklaus with a grin. "The way the stupid Muggle kept trying more and more desperately to build a fire, with more and more of his body growing numb and frozen and useless all the while… and then how it finally dawns on him that he's really going to die, and there's nothing he can do about it, and the fear seizes him and he starts running wildly down the trail…" He sighed, deeply affected.

"Yes, it was pretty good," said Nathaniel. "Definitely better than the one Mother read us last night, about the lady who lost the lottery. That one had a good ending, but it wasted too much time at first describing the cheerful villagers and the bright June morning."

"Oh, I agree," said Nadia. "Wintry stories are _much_ better than summery ones."

"Naturally," said their father. "Well, now, everyone hop into bed – and tomorrow, if you're very good, perhaps you'll get to hear about the whole civilisation that got driven mad by nightfall."

" _Oooooh!_ "

* * *

 _"Angie is a whizz with numbers, so she spends most of her time dealing with the admin side of business and watching the kids…"_ –GingerWitchWriter, "Final Moments"

The small brass chain glinted on Angelina's wrist as she wearily typed up the Undersecretary's latest letter to the head of the Nimbus Corporation, and she scowled down at the figures engraved upon it. **ZZ-16670-78** – yes, that was all she was now. Not Angelina Johnson, not senior Gryffindor Chaser, not the best transfigurator in her year, just… ZZ-16670-78.

She couldn't blame Professor Dumbledore, she supposed. After all, she was technically the product of Dark magic – and a rather outré form, at that; her mother must have been truly desperate to have a child, to cast a spell on herself to make a baby form in the toilet the next time she urinated. Of course Dumbledore would discover that – and of course, being a law-abiding wizard, he would insist on her being registered and numbered before she entered his school. But she was sure he hadn't intended that to lead to her summary dismissal from Hogwarts, to serve as unpaid administrative assistant and nursemaid to the Junior Undersecretary for Broom Regulatory Control. Nostradamus himself couldn't have foreseen that the Ministry's respect for human rights would disintegrate so far in a mere seven years.

 _But you're not really human, Johnson,_ she reminded herself sardonically. _You're just a numbered whizz your mother took eighteen years ago, and there's no good wasting your strength moping about it. Come on, now, finish up the paperwork so your master can take you home; those little gremlins he calls children are probably wondering what's happened to their favourite animate punching bag._

"Damn you, Umbridge," she muttered as she bent over the typewriter again.

* * *

 _"After seven hours of wandering – [during] two of which he had been forced to climb a tree to escape [a] group of bears that were fighting, matting and eating in the area he had wandered into…"_ –Jayan phoenix, "Harry Potter and the Peverell Legacy"

"All right, whiz-kid," said Thistlehair, munching a pawful of berries as he lumbered over to Bluntpaw's visual-effects console. "What's the problem now?"  
"I'll tell you what the problem is," Bluntpaw snarled, his claws tapping at the computer keyboard with angry vigour. "Your bloody assistant doesn't know the first thing about how compositing works. 'Oh, we don't need a human actor for this scene; old Blunty can just matte a picture of James Dean over Tumblefur's body double, and nobody will ever know.' Just the kind of crack-brained idea I'd expect from the likes of him."

"Well, what would you suggest?" Greymuzzle snapped. "We can't very well just cast a bear as the young King Arthur and expect the public to take it lying down, can we? Terribly sorry if I'm asking too much of your vaunted talents; perhaps I wouldn't have to, if certain casting directors had actually done their job…"

"Oh!" said Wispfur, in the acid tone her colleagues knew so well. "So it's _my_ fault, is it, that all the wizards on this island have gotten too high-and-mighty to take a job working for magical beasts? Let me tell you something, Mister Greymuzzle – yes, and all the rest of you, too: if _half_ the bears on this crew would work a _quarter_ as hard as my assistants and I have done…"

The rest of her sentence was drowned out by half a dozen roars of protest, and a lively quarrel ensued of which Harry, hidden in the boughs of an elm tree overhanging the set, could only make out the merest fraction. Not that he tried very hard; he merely clung tighter to the limb beneath him, praying that he wouldn't be noticed. The last thing he needed was photographic evidence of where he'd been this afternoon playing in magical cinemas around the country – and, if the bears spotted him, he didn't see how he could decently (or healthily) avoid that.

"All right, everyone," came Thistlehair's voice over the din at last. "Let's just settle down, break for lunch, and come back in half an hour with fresh minds. If worse comes to worst, we can always just rewrite Arthur out of the scene, right, Gnarlclaw?"

"Oh, sure," muttered the screenwriter. "Why not? Every other scene in the original script is unrecognisable by now; why not this one, too?"

"That's the spirit," said Thistlehair, slapping him on the back. "Come on, let's go get acquainted with that sweet-looking trout stream we saw on our way in."

* * *

 _"Malfoys were not supposed to be effected by women like this, especially a woman like her."_ –piscesclio, "My Light"

"You got Hermione Granger _pregnant_?" Lucius exclaimed.

"Hermione _Malfoy_ ," Draco corrected him sharply.

Lucius waved that aside. "Have you no pride left in your heritage, Draco?" he demanded. "In all the centuries since the family's founding, no Malfoy has ever seen the inside of a woman's womb – least of all a woman of such lineage. For thirty-three generations, each of our ancestors has carried on the line in the same way: by taking the Animagus form of a slug, casting _Limacovorax_ on himself and mating with his own upchuckings, and letting the resulting infant live as a parasite in his abdomen for nine months. And would you break this glorious tradition – this supreme symbol of our invincible self-sufficiency and manhood – this…"

"Oh, come, Father," said Draco airily. "You're living in the past, and you know it. In these modern times, Malfoys may be effected by any means their fathers wish: by the Rites of Mapreg, certainly, but also by parthenogenesis, fissiparation, pollination, sporogenesis… and, yes, even the fruitful love of a man and a woman." And he kissed his wife elaborately on the forehead, bringing a charming blush to Hermione's cheeks.

Lucius groaned. "Oh, great Ilmatar," he said, "how did I conceive such a pervert?"


	10. Swearing, Statute, Guilt, Bollocks

_"And telling her legal clients to tell lies sometimes, even when they were searing on the [B]ible…"_ –SinghSong, "The Smartest Snake: The Story of Mafalda Prewett"

"Your soundest course, Headmistress, is to stick to straight denial," Cloris Prewett said, raising her voice to be heard over her client's agonised screams, the sizzling of said client's searing flesh, and the library paintings' cries of _Serves you right, you dirty usurper!_ "Under Clause Six of Educational Decree Twenty-Three, any information that would tend to undermine the authority of the Inquisitorial office is _ipso facto_ classified, so there is ample legal imperative for you not to admit yourself to be a she-demon from the pits of Hell. Many of your students, I believe, already suspect this fact, and to learn that your mere proximity caused Roger Bacon's Bible to leap from the Restricted Section, drag you to the ground, and engulf you in flames, could only encourage and legitimise their speculations."

Umbridge's only response to this trenchant assessment was a sound like " _Aaaaiiiieeerrrggghhhh!_ ", and it occurred to Mrs Prewett that her client might not be in the mood for an in-depth consultation at just that moment. "But we can go into all that later, if you prefer," she said, snapping her briefcase briskly shut again. "For now, I'll just see myself out and… oh, by the by, do you mind if I use your office's fireplace? I need to call Minister Fudge, and let him know that he can't actually be removed from office just for being a Deep One of many-columned Y'ha-nthlei."

* * *

 _"[A]fter the Stature of Secrecy was passed, Flavia Weasley altered the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and Obliviated those scholars who would notice the changes."_ –Susan M. M, author's note to "1066"

Arthur Weasley, looking far older than his seventy-eight years, entered his son's joke shop and fixed the proprietor with his gaze. "George, I'd like a word with you," he said.

"Sure, Dad," said George agreeably. "What's up?"

"My office was notified this morning of a queer disturbance at the British Museum," said Arthur. "When we arrived there, we found a number of eminent historians wandering around outside, quacking like ducks; going in, our attention was directed to Cott. Tib. B iv, which informed us, to our surprise, that the Battle of Stamford Bridge had been won by Axebanger Brookstanton, who was able to drown Napoleon Bonaparte in the River Derwent thanks to the timely intervention of Frodo Baggins."

"Really?" said George. "Well, you'll want to correct that, definitely. Everyone knows it was Merry Brandybuck who…"

"George, this is no joking matter," said Arthur. "There's no use pretending you don't know the law; I happen to know the Minister's written to you about it personally. I love Flavia as much as any of my other grandchildren, but the fact remains that leprechaun blood is untamable dynamite, and humans who bear it must be kept apart from the Muggle world. Period."

"No, not period," George reminded him. "You remember the loophole Hermione stuck in that law. If the hybrid being exceeds five feet, three inches in height, it is assumed that his leprechaun heritage is too slight to significantly affect his temperament, and he is accordingly loosed from the restraints enumerated hereunder. So, when Flavia's recent growth spurt brought her up to five foot three and a half, naturally I took her around to see some of the sights of London, as she's been longing to do for fifteen years."

His father stared at him, open-mouthed. "George, you can't be serious," he said. "Did you seriously think that passing the Stature of Secrecy by half an inch would make _your_ quarter-leprechaun daughter's sense of fun one whit less dangerous to the Muggle public?"

"I stand on the letter of the law, Dad," said George. "Incidentally, have you managed to round up all of the Mildenhall Treasure yet? I told Flavia that that was going a bit far, but she argued persuasively that, in a place so dedicated to Muggle culture, the dish simply _had_ to run away with the spoon."

* * *

 _"Miss Granger, my dear, you can not save him if you carry the gilt of letting him be taken."_ –Fallen Darkness, "Braking, Broken, Pieced Together"

Hermione's hand stole to her cheek, and she ran her nails along the thin layer of gold that now coated her skin from head to toe. "I know," she said softly. " _The touch of his beloved's lips_ … But what are we supposed to do, then? You say it can't be removed…"

"No," Dumbledore agreed. "Once the Cor Magiæ has been awakened, its judgments are naturally irreversible by mere wizardry; since it regarded you as having betrayed its champion for gold, and accordingly condemned you to be gilded with the same in perpetuity, no possible magic can peel that gilt off again."

The logic was irrefutable, and, Hermione being Hermione, she surrendered to it with a piteous moan. Another girl might have tried to shut her eyes to the facts, to change them by sheer will-power – or, at least, to protest that she hadn't known she was pawning Harry's magical soul to pay for her schoolbooks; he had, after all, never told her _why_ the ivory phoenix was so important. But Hermione had cultivated rationality, both theoretic and practical, for far too long to forsake it now; all she could do was weep over her folly – and so, burying her face in her arms and falling forward onto the Headmaster's desk, she did.

From somewhere above her, she heard Dumbledore cough gently. "There is, however, one way that you may be able to aid in Harry's recovery," he said. "As you know, to have any chance of defeating Dame Babur, we will need all the creatures of the Forbidden Forest behind us, including the feral automobile that formerly belonged to Arthur Weasley. It seems, though, that that creature has acquired some severe mechanical defects over the years, which will have to be attended to before it can be taken into battle; its braking system, in particular, appears to be badly corroded by Acromantula venom. And, to complicate matters further, it has evidently taken a violent dislike to all creatures of flesh and blood; nothing that is not metallic like itself can safely approach within ten yards of it. So it may be, after all, that your affliction will prove to have – if you'll pardon the expression – a silver lining."

Hermione couldn't quite bring herself to laugh, but she did manage a smile as she raised her head again and dabbed at her eyes. "All right, sir," she said. "Give me a few days to study, and I daresay I can learn to piece a broken braking back together."

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "Excellent."

* * *

 _"Oh, you know, the usual. Saving the wizarding world from arrogant gits like yourself by getting rid of your bullock's laws and policies."_ –Elocintheelvenprincess, "The Dance"

"In conclusion," said the Right Honourable the Member for New Sarum, "if this House regards it as a cause for pride that the State should interfere in the most intimate aspects of its citizens' domestic affairs, by all means let it vote this measure down. But if, in the hearts of those assembled here, there yet beats the faintest love of private liberty and the sanctity of the British home, then I say to you that these noble sentiments could not be expressed more fittingly than in the passage of the 2016 Elladora Black Memorial Elfin-Taxidermy Bill. I have done."

And, amid the enthusiastic cheers of the half-dozen other M.P.'s who had been notified of this special session of Parliament (most of whom were too drunk and/or Confunded to notice that the orator they were applauding had four legs, a cream-coloured hide, and a brass ring in his nose), he trotted down from the podium and out into the Members' Lobby, where he lowed with quiet pride to the pale figure leaning against the Churchill Arch.

"Good boy, Strephon Champion," said Draco Malfoy, reaching down to scratch his loyal bullock's ear. "Here, have a salt lick."


	11. Target, Messing, Pair, Taut

_"[R]ight, well, basically, it is a spell that requires there to be a mental connection between the targe and the caster."_ –Finbar, "The Power the Dark Lord Knows Of"

As Harry lifted the small, round, leather-covered shield, he felt an inexplicable certainty: this was the moment. He had practiced with the targe day and night for five months, and each cast had brought him that much closer to that perfect psychic union of weapon and wielder that was so crucial to the _Metastratiotes_ spell's fulfillment; now, at last, he was sure – irrationally, unquestionably sure – that that fulfillment was at hand.

With a wordless cry, he flung the targe toward the nearest of the Room of Requirement's pillars. Its embossed Union Jack vibrated with the force of impact as it rebounded unerringly off all seven columns and soared back toward its caster; serenely, Harry raised his hand and caught it in the midst of its flight, as deftly as though he had merely plucked a flower off a tree.

At that same moment, he felt a surge of power run through his body; his eye level, high as it already was, shot upward a good three inches, and his robes began to tighten and tear as his slender frame reshaped itself into the chiseled musculature of a Grecian effigy. Even his eyesight had repaired itself, moving him to tear off his glasses and toss them aside – a bit harder than he had meant, in fact, being unused to his newly superhuman strength; they sailed through the air and shattered against the Room's farther wall.

A delighted cry echoed from the doorway; Harry turned and grinned at his Defence against the Dark Arts teacher, inspiring the latter to yet greater effusions. "It is done!" he cried. "After three hundred years, the legend is reborn! To think that I – I, Francis Murray Childers – should have lived to see this day!" His voice caught momentarily, and he wiped away a not unmanly tear. "Ah, it is well, it is well. Welcome back – Captain Britannia."

* * *

 _"Miss Vane, you've been missing with some powerful magic."_ –HP Slash Luv, "When in Doubt"

"Don't come any closer!" Romilda shrieked to the advancing phalanx of Death Eaters. "I warn you, I've spent the past year mastering the most ancient and potent spells known to wizardry; if you even think about… No, I'm warning you, you'll be sorry… all right, then, you asked for it! _Nihilomorpho!_ "

A violet surge of magic burst from her wand; the Death Eaters watched, bemused, as it sailed over their heads and struck the nearby statue of Devorgilla the Disturbed, which promptly shattered with a sickening howl into a throbbing vortex of faintly luminous nothingness.

"Oops," said Romilda. "Okay, then: _Nagabusa!_ Oh, fewmets! _Ting Yung Han!_ Fewmets! _Og'throd ai'f geb'l ee'h_ … oh, no, no, wait… no, don't, please! AAAIIIEEE! Potter! Professor McGonagall! HELP!"

But no help was forthcoming, and Romilda Vane was carried off to a fate of which this chronicler will not speak – except to observe that, as those wise in magic have always said, even the most powerful spells do a person little good if she keeps missing with them.

* * *

 _"'…Each pear will name the child and take care of it for six months,' Professor McGonagall announced as she stood in front of the class."_ –babygrocks2000, "Harry Potter and the Crazy Homework"

"Why?" one of the students in the back asked curiously.

Professor McGonagall cocked her head. "Why what?"

"Why does the child have to be renamed every six months?"

"Oh, that." McGonagall's face cleared. "Merely a precaution. Until about age five, a magical child is particularly vulnerable to spells of enthrallment, and I trust we can all imagine how many Dark wizards would like to control the mind of Albus Dumbledore's child – so, since spells of enthrallment require the use of the victim's name, constant re-christening is the safest choice. It involves psychological hazards, of course, but Chi-ko and her sisters know how to avert those."

"I'd think it would cause psychological problems anyway, being raised by fruit," said Lily Evans dryly. "You're not at all concerned about that, Professor? After all, it's your baby as much as the Headmaster's."

Professor McGonagall's hand stole to her midriff, and a quiet smile crossed her face. "No, Miss Evans," she said, "I can't say that I am. I know the Pao-li Orchard well, and I don't believe any witch's child could receive wiser or tenderer care than that of its enchanted pears."

Then the familiar mask of stern discipline fell over her features again, and she added, "But my domestic arrangements are scarcely this class's major concern. I only wanted to inform you, so that you won't be unduly alarmed if I should have to dash off to Taiwan just as your end-of-term exams are approaching. But now, if we might carry on with today's lesson…"

* * *

 _"He activated the mirror and saw James's pale taunt face."_ –HorsesRuby, "Raised by a Lord"

"What's up, Snivellus?" James sneered. "Didn't think you'd have the nerve to call again, after the last time we… oh, Padfoot, it's you." He blinked and rearranged his features, and the blood flowed abruptly back into his cheeks. "Sorry, I didn't… um… what are you doing with Snape's mirror?"

"He left it on his desk after Divination," said Sirius with a smirk, "and I decided to borrow it for a little while. Shall I bring it up to the Tower, and let you and the other two play with it a bit?"

James's face lit up. "Sirius, you're brilliant!" he said. "Yes, absolutely bring it up here! If we can reverse-engineer his secret out of it, and make four new ones on the same pattern, each of us will have free access to the view from every reflective surface in the castle; what more could a Marauder ask for?"

"My thoughts exactly," said Sirius. "And, even if we can't, it was worth nicking it just to see your expression when you thought I was Snape. Tell me, Prongs, honestly: why _is_ your taunt face so much paler than your usual countenance?"

"Oh, I don't know." James shrugged. "Some inbred genetic defect, probably; I am a pureblood, after all. Never mind that, just get up here."


	12. Discreet, Coach, Otherwise, Restrained

_"Over the next few months, a discrete romance developed between Diamondback and the Rattler."_ –selenepotter, "Son of the Serpents"

"Morning, Gustav," said Rachel Leighton in a bored tone, slipping past her fellow émigré from Earth-616 en route to the Malfoy Manor breakfast table.

" _Dzień dobry_ , Rachel," murmured Gustav Krueger, not even glancing up from his scrambled eggs.

Bellatrix Lestrange watched these proceedings with bewilderment. "What is with those two?" she whispered to her husband. "Just yesterday, they were practically panting with desire for each other, and now they're barely acknowledging each other's existence. And it's not just today, either; every time we see them, they seem to have switched from deathless infatuation to utter indifference – or vice versa, as it may be."

Rodolphus shrugged. "Supervillains aren't like us, Belle," he said. "They don't have the endurance it takes to have a continuous romance, so they have to get theirs in little isolated, spasmodic chunks. Natural, really; they're still Muggles, after all, however powerful and evil they may be."

Bellatrix shook her head. "Sad."

Rodolphus shot a sly glance at her, and grinned. "Oh, I don't know," he said, leaning down to nuzzle a particular spot that he knew about on the nape of her neck. "After all, even a discrete romance is better than none at all, right?"

* * *

 _"Ron was the couch for the Chudley Cannons, a team that had won two cups, much to Ron's joy."_ –JacobApple, "Harry Potter and the Disorder of the Phoenix"

"Roll Caissons!" Ruby Crockstone exulted, as her fellow Cannons carried her in triumph into their cabin behind the stadium, where Ron, silent and faithful as ever, stood waiting for them.

"Two years, two United Kingdom Quidditch Cups!" cried Protagoras Rizzi, pumping his fist in the air. "Eat that, Southwark!"

" _We are the champions, my frie-e-e-ends!_ " Alina More caroled, with little tonal elegance but indisputably sincere fervour.

And, with a laugh, the whole team fell down as one into Ron's cushions, causing the battered old sofa to sigh inaudibly with a private joy of his own. Perhaps it was a snobbish illusion on his part, but there did always seem to him to be a peculiar satisfaction in being pressed by the buttocks of champions – and especially such champions as these: merry yet sober, vigorous yet courteous, in every way the flower and epitome of British sportsmanship.

 _Yes, indeed,_ he thought to himself, _it was a blessed day when I became the couch of the Chudley Cannons._

* * *

 _"I smile as I remember the way she takes full-fat evaporated milk and drowns her other wise healthy granola in it…"_ –Anisky, "Her"

"Mark my words, young Ginevra," said the brimming bowl of dried fruit, nuts, and oat clusters. "You may think yourself very bold and liberated now, but the time will come when you will surely regret having bestowed your charms so freely upon the youths of Hogwarts. Chastity is a matter, not merely of the flesh, but of the spirit; she who dallies with many lovers in her heart, though her maidenhead remain intact, will yet find her soul scarred as by fire, for the joys that belong to true purity will be – AAAAIIIIEEEEE!"

Ginny tapped her fingers dispassionately as the Healthy Granola's screams mingled with the hum of the microwave; then, when the bell dinged, she withdrew the bowl (from which faint whimpers could still be heard to issue) and returned to the breakfast table. "Bill says it's better warm, anyway," she remarked laconically.

Hermione put down her muffin, and covered her mouth to hide a smile. "You do have it out for that stuff, don't you?" she said. "I remember that other bowl you had last week, that kept trying to tell you how much sorrow it would bring you to go to the Nightshade Revels in defiance of parental strictures – and you just laughed sardonically and said, 'Oh, well, I'll dance it off at the Lamia Club later,' and then poured the whole bowl into the milk jug and held it under the surface until it drowned."

Ginny flushed slightly – she preferred not to think about the Nightshade Revels, just yet – but her voice remained cool. "Naturally," she said. "If Mum wants me to have good advice, she ought to give it to me herself, instead of buying a box of cereal to do it for her. I don't mind my breakfast being healthy," she added, reaching for the brown sugar, "but I draw the line at its being wise."

* * *

 _"That was all Weasley needed. He lunged towards me, only to be restained by Granger."_ –harrypottermagic32, "A New Beginning"

"Hermione!" he gasped, disbelieving. "You… you turncoat! You…"

"Oh, don't be insipid, Ron," Granger snapped, shouldering her marker again as she spoke. "You know perfectly well that you're not allowed to attack an opposing player for staining you, even if it is Malfoy. I had to stop you somehow before you got the whole Gryffindor team disqualified, and restaining you myself was the quickest way of getting your attention. Now, do I have to _re_ -restain you, or are you ready to behave like a civilised human being?"

To his credit, Weasley was man enough to look abashed. "Yeah, okay, good point," he said. "Sorry."

"Apology accepted, Weasley," I said, though I knew perfectly well he hadn't been speaking to me. "Now, down with your weapons and off with you to Green Base – and you, too, Granger."

 _Maybe this whole Muggle-sports program isn't so bad after all,_ I thought as I watched them meekly obey. _If the next few Dumbledore has planned are at all like this paintball thing, I just might be persuaded not to miss Quidditch._

* * *

 **Author's note:** Sorting-Head tip to AlienKing321 for finding the quote for "Coach". (And to the guest reviewer who brought the "Sorting Head" error to my attention. I didn't want to use that in a Minuet proper, since it seems to me to be more an error of proofreading than of grammar or spelling, but it does seem to belong in this fic somewhere, so – here you go.)


	13. Bear, Bore, Tuney, Part-Dragon Female

_"His dad, Sirius… he couldn't bare to lose Dumbledore too… not when his precious was already gone."_ –fanfict, "Precious"

Harry heard the footsteps coming nearer, and cursed himself for a fool. There was no use, now, in stripping off his robes and exposing the _sep_ ointment to the air; he'd already used it twice, once to throw his dad off his trail and once to lose Sirius. Its Confunding power wouldn't work a third time, unless he strengthened it by means of the Precious – and that, like an idiot, he'd left out on his bedside table the day before, and his mother had found it and taken it from him before she'd left for Merseyside. _Everyone_ was against him; it wasn't _fair_ …

The closet door creaked open, and a pair of half-moon spectacles glinted in the darkness as Dumbledore poked his head in. "Ah, Harry," he said, with an infuriating twinkle in his eyes. "So you are here, after all. You've certainly been leading James and Sirius on a merry chase, haven't you? A good thing I happened to drop by, or they might never have located you." He shook his head. "Dear me, if you're this clever at age three, I tremble to think what it will be like having you at Hogwarts. But, in any case, the jig is up now – and it's time for you, my young renegade, to have that bath of yours."

" _Waaaaahhhh!_ "

* * *

 _"[H]e sat on the grass staring at a headstone that barred two names, two people taken way too soon."_ –Lady0fNight, "To New Beginnings 2"

Softly, Ginny came up behind him and touched his shoulder. "Harry, we need to go back now," she whispered. "I know how hard it is, but giving yourself pneumonia isn't going to be any help to _ and _."

Even as her voice formed the names, she felt the otherworldly magic slip in amidst them and whisk them away. She put a hand to her bosom, and shivered; it was one thing to know that the ancient headstone barred the names of the Lost from being spoken, but quite another to feel it actually happening.

For the thousandth time, she wondered why the Others had taken them. (She had been assured that there was no use in seeking reason in the Others' actions, but her own human soul refused to believe it.) What did they want with human children? What had made them come to the Potter home on that particular midsummer night? And why had they left James, and only taken… the other two?

She shook her head, and squeezed her husband's shoulder. "Come on, darling," she said.

* * *

 _"'Do you think I could be like her one day, Tunny?' she asked, sliding under the covers."_ –McKinnon-and-Black-forever, "King and Lionheart"

Silence from the bedside table, and Lily hastened to clarify. "Alice Bonner, I mean. She seems to have everything: looks, taste, savoir-faire, a devoted older brother, glorious Transfiguration skills – and Frank Longbottom on top of it all. Not," she added quickly, "that I envy her Frank, specifically – but it would be nice to have a beau not too unlike him. You know, gentlemanly, considerate, soft-spoken, but definitely a man underneath it all – the opposite of Potter, basically. Do you suppose it'll ever happen?"

The large, silvery fish's only response was to swim down to the bottom of its tank and start nosing about in the silt, and Lily laughed aloud and rolled her eyes. "All right, be that way," she said. "I swear, next year I'm trading you in for a proper animal; I don't know what I was thinking, letting the man at the Menagerie talk me into buying a tunny instead of an owl."

* * *

 _"A year after Harry and Draco graduate from [H]ogwarts they meet in a coffee shop, and Draco has a part female dragon roommate?"_ –Shini4, summary to "The Beginning of a New"

"Your roommate is a dragon?" Harry said.

Draco nodded.

"A _female_ dragon?"

" _Part_ female," Draco said. "But part male, also."

Harry stared at him. "Excuse me?"

Draco sighed. "Look, Potter, you know how snails and earthworms reproduce, right? Each individual equipped with both male and female genitalia, so that, when they mate, each one begets what the other conceives? Well, the West Asian Phaendragon works the same way. It's perfectly natural."

Harry suppressed the impulse to shudder. "Okay, whatever you say," he said. "So how did this one acquire the necessary sentience to be able to share a lease with you?"

"Nobody knows," said Draco. "Alyshka itself doesn't know; apparently it just woke up one morning and found itself able to conceive abstract thoughts. It says it's probably the beginning of a new."

Harry blinked. "A new era, you mean?" he said. "A new chapter of history? A new stage in evolution?"

"No," said Draco. "Just a new." At the expression on Harry's face, he added, "Look, I only said it _had_ an intellect; I didn't say it was any good at using it yet."

"You two ready to order, then?"

Draco glanced up at the waitress who had suddenly arrived. "Ah, yes, miss, thank you," he said. "I'll have a tall mocha breve, extra whipped creams, no sprinkles. And for you, Potter?"

"Just get me something strong," Harry muttered. "I have a feeling I'm going to need it."


	14. Winds Up, Soars, Dying, Titles

_"When she tries to sneakily learn his secrets in order to get his gift and Malfoy winds trapped under some mistletoe, things quickly get out of hand."_ –Kittenshift17, summary to "Wrapped in Red"

As Hermione dangled upside-down in midair, struggling helplessly against the gleaming red bonds that had wrapped themselves around her body, she heard the creak of an opening door and an all-too-familiar footfall on the stone floor. "Well, well," came a drawling voice. "Looks like somebody's bitten off more than she could chew."

"Malfoy!" Hermione gasped. "Please, it's not… I can explain, I…"

"No need, Granger," said Draco coldly. "That sprig of mistletoe in your hand does all the explaining necessary. You and your friends have feared my family powers since I used the Malfoy winds to blow Potter off his broom in second year; now that I've acquired a personal gift of eomancy as well, of course you felt obliged to take drastic measures. So, having learned from Flitwick that all blood mages have secret weaknesses and vulnerabilities, you tried to sneak a look at my medical records to see if you couldn't find out how to detach those powers from my magical soul and imprison them beneath a herb of magical bane. All very natural, I'm sure – but you might at least have done me the credit of assuming that I don't just leave my secrets lying about unguarded. Or did you actually expect your Mudblood book-learning to prevail against one who can touch the very heartstrings of magic itself?"

Hermione shot him a hate-filled glare that seemed only to gratify him further. "So no," he said, "I don't mind so much for myself – but I do wonder what the Headmaster will say. Or, for that matter, what Madam Pomfrey will say, when she hears about a student prying into her confidential archives to inflict grievous magical harm on another. I suppose I'd better go fetch them; you can just… ah… hang around here till they arrive."

* * *

 _"Letting the owl in, Harry takes the letter and the owl sores off."_ –Dragons-Twilight1992, "King of Magic"

 _Dear Mr Potter: Our apologies for sending you a pox-ridden owl with this missive, but it was necessary in order to verify the results of our recent investigation into your account. You should find that you have instinctively removed the sores from its facial area in the act of taking this letter off its leg; if so, this confirms our belief that the lock on your Messiah Core, laid in your infancy by Albus Dumbledore for his own (doubtless sinister) reasons, has been successfully removed. You now have the power to heal the sick, raise the dead, set captives free, and proclaim good tidings to the poor; since you will doubtless desire counsel on the use of these powers, and since none of your intimates can be trusted, we welcome your making an appointment with us at your earliest convenience. Yours sincerely, the Gringotts Bank Board of Directors._

 _P.S.: Incidentally, if you discuss this matter with your friend Mr Weasley, he may tell you that Messiah Cores naturally unlock themselves on one's sixteenth birthday, and that we of Gringotts have a long history of deceiving future Messiahs on this subject, so as to gain their fealty and forestall their denunciation of our own usurious activities. We wish to emphasise that this is entirely untrue, and that the House of Weasley is a gaggle of loathsome, scheming, utterly unscrupulous sycophants, especially the girl. Thank you._

* * *

 _"But then again, the prospect of dyeing scares me, and so I simply must live."_ –meiscool2, "ReBorn"

Frank Bryce's lifeless body fell to the floor; Nagini shuddered faintly as the sliver of soul entered into her, and Voldemort settled back into place with a sigh. At last, the sixth Horcrux, so long delayed, had come into being; at last, he was bound firmly to the present life, forever secure against the doom of eternal fibre coloration that awaited him in the next.

He shivered as he remembered Mrs Cole's words, so long before: _Do you know what happens, Tom, to little boys who kill other people's pets for fun? They get taken away to a great big yarn factory underground, where the devils force them to mordant the wool with their bare hands._ He hadn't even known what mordanting was, at the time, but the general idea had been all too clear, and had scarred him on the subject for life; later on, when Professor Hughes had dedicated a Herbology lesson to the properties of indigo, he had fled screaming from the greenhouse, and had been found later cringing under the Great Hall's Slytherin table, whimpering, "Sig vats… royal purple… Carthage… no! no!" (Of course, everyone who had seen this had died shortly thereafter, but that had only consoled him a little bit.)

 _Not to worry, my precious,_ he told himself now, reaching out an ethereal hand to stroke Nagini's head. _The imps won't be getting any dyeing out of you now._

* * *

 _"Her wand lit up and she started to read the tittles of the books."_ –BlackRose207, "Memories"

"Lordy, you look bushed," was Ron's greeting as Hermione staggered down to the breakfast nook the next morning.

Hermione groaned. "I was up till four in the morning, reading by wand-light," she said. "But I did confirm my hypothesis: the text of the Crombie Tomes is meaningless, and what you have to do is read the tittles over the lowercase I's and J's. They form recurring patterns in a simple substitution cipher, with each page representing a letter or some other orthographic symbol; each Tome, taken as a whole, describes one of the Seven Rituals of Eternity, including the necessary materials and mental intentions. The one we're looking for, the Rite of Unification, is in…"

"Wait a moment," said Harry, jumping up from the table. "Let me just get a quill and a piece of parchment, so I can write down what we'll need." He hurried from the nook, and there was a few minutes' sound of rustling and searching from the next room; then he returned, seated himself again at the table, and poised his quill over the parchment. "All right, Hermione, fire away; what…"

But Hermione was lying sprawled out upon the table, with Ron gingerly lifting her hair out of his oatmeal as she snored into the sugar bowl. Harry regarded this tableau for a moment or two, and then nodded and put the quill aside. "All right, fair enough," he said. "I suppose the joining of the Hallows can wait a few hours, anyway."


	15. Chapter 15

**Note:** This chapter is properly entitled "Senile, Gryffindor-Loving; On; '81; Last". Apparently, however, our beloved site software does not recognize semicolons in chapter titles, rendering me unable to display this properly in the menu. (And after all the work I put into making it come in under the character limit, too…) Oh, well, c'est la vie.

* * *

 _"I'm dragged to the 'celebration' by a stiff-upper-lip Minerva and our senile-Gryffindor-loving Headmaster."_ –fyre, "Are You Now or Have You Ever Been?"

"So this is why you brought me along," said Snape, sniffing critically at his glass of punch. "As your new Potions master, you thought I might be able to divine what the secret ingredient is in this stuff. I'd say Utraens's Laxative Philtre."

McGonagall sighed. "Severus, _must_ you spend the whole afternoon carping?" she said. "Coming to this party was never about enjoying oneself; it's about honouring an illustrious colleague. Tithonus Periwinkle was a great man in his day, and the least his successors on the Hogwarts faculty can do is attend his 100th birthday celebration."

Snape grunted, and shot a glance at Dumbledore, who was listening to the disconnected dronings of the old Potions master and Head of Gryffindor House with the same childlike rapture as the company of Bathilda Bagshot was said to bring him. Minerva could say what she liked, but Snape thought all the Headmaster's talk of loyalty was a mere excuse, and the truth was that he just loved him his senile Gryffindors.

 _Well,_ he thought, _at least he didn't invite Periwinkle's_ immediate _successor in the Potions department. I doubt I could endure Slughorn in this atmosphere, with only nursing-home punch to…_

"Ah, Severus, m'boy! And how's my old job treating you?"

* * *

"Darling," said Viverra Malfoy to her husband, as she reclined languidly on their hotel bed, "I feel like spilling my innermost secrets to everyone within earshot. Could you be a dear and order me a Veritaserum?"

"But of course, milady," said Draco, and reached out and tapped the intercom. "Hello, room service? One Veritaserum, please. –No, straight up. –All right, thank you."

He didn't expect to have to wait long, the service at the legendary Hotel Sia being what it was; still, he was surprised to hear a knock on their room's door barely thirty seconds later. He went and opened it, to find, indeed, a house-elf bellhop beaming up at him, but one who bore no salver or glass of truth potion; instead, sitting next to him, stark naked and bound with enchanted cords by the wrists and ankles, was the familiar form of Draco's fellow Sia patron, Harry James Potter.

"Here you is, sir!" the elf squeaked, his tone somehow managing to convey pride, servility, and ribald knowingness all at once.

Draco exchanged baffled stares with his old school rival. _"'Potter.'_

 _'Malfoy.'_

 _'How are you one Veritaserum?'"_ [–DaughterofaBeautyQueen, "Nothing I Won't Do"]

The elf blinked, and glanced at the number on the door. Then he reached into his rag and pulled out a slip of note-parchment; after a brief glance at this, he turned bright red and clapped a hand to his mouth. "Oh, Costard is so sorry, sir!" he said. "You is room 62D; this order is for room 62E. Please accept Costard's humblest apologies!"

"I should have thought," said Harry frostily, "that you could tell the difference between my wife and Mr Malfoy without needing to check a card."

"In this day and age, sir, one never knows," said Costard. "It is not a house-elf's place to…"

The rest of his self-justification was drowned out by the _pop!_ of his and Harry's Disapparation. Draco stared at the empty hallway for a long moment, then shook his head and shut the door. "You didn't see too much just then, did you, Viv?" he said.

"Nothing to make me jealous of Ginny Potter, if that's what you mean," said Viverra. "I'd give a good deal to know what that was all about, though."

"Really?" said Draco, arching an eyebrow. "To each his own, then. Myself, I'd say we're better off not knowing."

* * *

 _"'Mrs. Brown, if you don't mind, could you tell me how long Harry's been here at the orphanage?' 'Approximately ten years, I think. A police officer brought him, if I'm not mistaken, on the fifth of November of 81…'"_ – .Xanda, "The Rise of a Dark Lord"

"Here's another little ruffian for your swarm, Matron," said the officer of the Cohors Urbana, thrusting the dark-haired boy through the doorway of the orphanage. "Henricus, he calls himself, or some such barbarian name."

"Thank you, Decurion," said Marcia Pulcheria Fusca, stifling a quiet sigh as she gazed on the reed-thin little Anglus. It was a cruel city they lived in, worthy of the late Apostle's epithet of Babylon; it had been so even under Vespasian and Titus, and, with Domitian now on the throne, she feared it would only grow more so – and this child, it was plain, had felt the full brunt of its cruelty.

Well, she would care for him as best she could, as for all the other human strays that the Lord had brought to her door. Perhaps, if he were nursed back to sufficient health, he might live to see the promised day of rectification, when the Son of Man would come in power and majesty to wipe away all the ills and griefs that afflicted the world in this Annus Urbis Conditæ 834 – or (as she privately thought of it, in recognition of the new age that had begun in Judea a generation before) this Annus Domini 81.

* * *

 _"The lasts were two girls. One with brown hair and the other with a long red braid."_ –Eva aka Pinkfox, "Time Toss"*

Gregory stared blankly at the young women who, a moment before, had been cast-iron forms on which to mold shoes. "What… but this… _how?_ " he managed breathlessly.

"As I said, Mr Stone," said the McGonagall woman briskly, "your employer is a Dark wizard, disguised as a common shoemaker for reasons into which we need not delve. Miss Granger and Miss Weasley, here, are friends and helpers of one of the Light's great champions; when Mr Pott learned that they were in the neighbourhood, he resolved to neutralise them in such a way that he could also keep them as trophies. It was done skilfully enough, but he reckoned without my own employer, the great Albus Dumbledore, whose mastery of magic is such that he determined the girls' precise fate in a matter of hours; he sent me here to release them, and the result you saw. And now, if you'll excuse us, we must be getting back to Hogwarts before Mr Pott returns."

The brunette cleared her throat. "Excuse me, Professor," she said, "but mightn't Mr Stone come with us? When Pott finds out that he let you in, he'll be lucky to escape with his life, and he'll certainly be out of a job – and Hogwarts could use a good shoe-mender on staff, couldn't it?"

McGonagall's lips quirked at the edges. "Why, yes, I suppose it could, at that," she said. "What do you say, Mr Stone? Would you care to accompany us?"

At first, Gregory was still too stunned to do more than murmur a vague, "Oh, um… yeah, sure." But then a thought crossed his mind that put new heart into him, and he laughed aloud. "Yes, rather, ma'am," he said. "Like I've always said, a cobbler ought to stick to his lasts."

* * *

*Crossover with Star Trek: The Next Generation.


	16. Cruciatus, Manner, Parselmouth, Live

_"My mother was a pure blood witch until I killed her with hours of the [C]urtius [C]urse."_ –Eme-Malfoy-Black, "The Lost Sister"

" _Ὑλία_ , sole," Elen Riddle gasped. "Goth. _sulja_ … _σανδάλιον_ , _ga-suljan_ … _θεμελιοῦν_ , OHG. _sola_. –Scarlet, please, have mercy, I beg you…"

"Mercy?" Scarlet laughed – a cold, harsh witch's cackle. " _Curtio!_ "

Her mother's eyes bulged with horror as the spell overpowered her again. " _Xαλῑνό-ς_ (Aeol. _χάλιννο-ς_ )!" she screamed. "Skt. _khal_ _īna-s_ , _khalina-s_ , bit of the bridle (?)! –No! Scarlet, please…!"

" _Curtio!_ "

"Aagh! _Ψύλλα_ , _ψύλλο-ς_ , flea! Lat. _pūl-ex_! OHG. _flôh_ … ChSl. _blŭ-cha_ … Lith.… Lith.…"

But the Lithuanian form never made it past her lips. Three hours' compelled recitation of Greek etymological derivations had at last taken their toll; with a ghastly, gurgling rattle, Elen Riddle fell forward onto the cold stone floor, and lay as dead as Queen Anne.

Her daughter smirked, and slipped her wand back into her sleeve. "That'll teach you to sneer at the spells I invent, you old pure-blood hag," she hissed. "So a 19th-Century Muggle philologist can't contribute anything to Dark magic, can he? Maybe now the _rest_ of your stinking family will be a little more respectful of the Curtius Curse."

* * *

 _"Sirius Orion Black, how dare you address me in that manor!"_ –MargaritaVille108, "The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black"

"You've been holding that in way too long, Mum," Regulus smirked.

Mrs Black ignored him. "You know our rule, Sirius!" she said. "If you want anything from me during a visit to the Malfoys, you send me a message through that elf of theirs! Never – _never_ – are you to address me directly in their manor!"

"Mum, all I said was please pass the potatoes!" Sirius protested.

"That doesn't matter!" Mrs Black snapped. "If Lucius Malfoy sees my children speaking to me, he may get the idea that it's all right for him to speak to _his_ mother – and _then_ where will we be?"

"Um…"

"Exactly! Don't try to excuse yourself, young man; you're already in enough trouble without it. I'm going to go speak to your father; he'll decide whether your offence merits a good caning, or whether it's enough just to ground you for the rest of the month." And Mrs Black stalked off in the direction of her husband's study.

Sirius glanced quizzically at his younger brother. "Reg," he said slowly, "am I missing something here?"

Regulus gave him an insufferably superior look. "It's just possible," he said. "Maybe next time you'll actually listen when Dad goes on about the _geasan_ of the old wizarding bloodlines, hmm?"

* * *

 _"'Harry[,] why didn't you tell us you were a parcel mouth?' Ron asked."_ –ponyrellabellasara, "Victorious at Hogwarts"*

 _I was afraid,_ Harry mouthed. (Being only a parcel mouth, with no attached parcel vocal cords, of course he couldn't speak aloud.) _I thought if you knew, you'd never write back. It's happened to me so often: people act as though they want to be my friends, but then they find out that I'm a human orifice unnaturally grafted onto a piece of packaging, and they get frightened and start finding reasons to avoid me._

"Well, sure they do," said Ron. "They're Muggles, aren't they? But it's nothing so unusual in our world; Dad has a co-worker who's a box nostril, and one of Bill's best mates at Hogwarts was a burlap-sack sweat pore."

"Sure," Ginny agreed fervently. "And then there's Uncle Marcel, who nearly married a crate…"

Ron coughed loudly. "Um… Ginny, you're not supposed to know about that," he said.

"Oh." Ginny blushed. "Right."

 _A crate what?_ Harry enquired.

"Nothing," said Ron firmly. "Nothing at all."

* * *

 _"The government advises against any contact with people who love across the country as it's still not clear what areas are the most affected by the epidemic –"_ –GilGalen, "Need to Survive"

"How many new cases reported today, Witherspoon?" said Fudge dully.

The head of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes consulted a parchment in his hand. "134 confirmed, according to the latest figures from St Mungo's," he said. "That's probably an under-estimate, though. The early-warning signs have been popping up everywhere; only yesterday, I had to send two of my own subordinates in for examination. Patience, kindness, failure to deal perversely – the works."

"I know," said Fudge. "My own wife's been showing an uncomfortable tendency lately to rejoice with the truth. Not badly, but enough to worry me."

He shook his head. "Insidious thing, this love epidemic. The victims seem so attractive at first, the mass of people can't see that there's any danger… and then when the advanced symptoms emerge – when they start denouncing sexual licence, rejecting unbridled material selfishness, and just generally undermining the whole basis of contemporary society – so often it's too late, and their friends and family are already infected. I'm afraid, Witherspoon, I admit it."

"Don't be, sir," said Witherspoon firmly. "We have the Ministry's whole propaganda arm working round the clock, making sure everyone in Britain knows that caring for the good of the other as other is the mark of a diseased psyche. We'll get this thing beaten, don't you worry."

Fudge sighed gratefully. "You're a good man, Witherspoon," he said.

* * *

*Crossover with Victorious.


	17. Heir, Down, Leant, Figg

_"I thought we agreed that Malfoy was the air."_ –ponyrellabellasara, "Victorious at Hogwarts"

"Well, yes, we did say that," said Susan Bones slowly, "but I was thinking about it afterwards, and I really think it would be more sensible if that role went to Padma. After all, she's the Ravenclaw in our study group – and, you know, Ravenclaw, eagles, air… it only seems logical."

"Actually, Sue," said Padma, with a sudden gleam of eager pedantry in her eye, "if we're going to go by Houses, it really ought to be you who's the air. Because air, in the mediæval theory, was the element of moist warmth, corresponding, among the four humours, to the blood – and Hufflepuff has always been the House for sanguine temperaments, Heaven knows. They say the Sorting Hat actually uses that as one of its baseline referents."

Susan frowned, considering. "So what would that make you, then?" she said.

"I'd be the earth," said Padma. "That's the equivalent of black bile or melancholy – the thing that gives all us Ravenclaws our brooding, restless minds, you know. And Draco would be water, for the phlegmatic Slytherin temper, and Harry would be fire to represent Gryffindor choler. That's what I call a rounded, well-thought-out presentation on classical alchemy." And she leaned back with a satisfied smile.

Susan glanced expectantly at her other partners. "Well, boys?" she said. "What do you think?"

Harry shrugged. "Sounds fine to me," he said. "Just so long as I know where I stand, that's all."

"Draco?"

The blond Slytherin smirked. "Me as the water to put out Potter's fire?" he said. "Sounds like all my dreams coming true at once."

Susan pursed her lips with well-bred distaste, but said only, "Right. That's how it'll be, then. Now let's talk about our costumes…"

* * *

 _"She followed a Point Me spell don a block or two to an old oak tree, but he was nowhere to be seen."_ –AllISeeAreStars, "Colors"

"Well, you're useless," Hermione said caustically to the grey-haired fellow of Oxford. "I'm trying to find Professor Snape, not acorns."

"Don't take that tone with me, young lady," the don retorted, puffing at his pipe in an ineffably insolent fashion. "When one casts a Point Me spell, one takes what one can get. I assure you, I didn't ask to come out of your wand and start poking around the local greenery for this greasy little Potions teacher of yours."

Hermione let out an outraged little gasp, and drew herself up haughtily. "Well!" she exclaimed. "All right, if you're going to be that way about it, then go on and transvect yourself back to Magdalen; I wouldn't dream of detaining you." She raised her wand. " _Em Tniop!_ "

A faint whooshing sound, and Hermione was alone on the cobbles, scowling at the spot where her companion had just stood. "Remote and ineffectual don," she declaimed loftily, folding her arms across her chest, "that dares attack my Severus! …No," she added after a moment, with a frown. "No, that doesn't really work, does it?"

* * *

 _"As I kissed her goodbye, I said, 'all beauty must die[,]' / And lent down and planted a rose between her teeth"_ –EverlyDream, "They Call Me the Wild Rose"

"Ready, 'Lady Vadrózsa'?" said Draco.

Hermione took a deep breath. "As ready as I'll ever be."

"Good." Draco leant forward and kissed her on the forehead. "Remember, now: _Tota Pulchritudo Moritor_."

Hermione shuddered. "Honestly," she said, "of all the horrible passwords…"

"Never mind that," said Draco. "Just repeat it."

" _Tota_ … _Pulchritudo_ … _Moritor_."

"Excellent." Draco reached into his robes and withdrew a small pouch filled with goose feathers. "Here's the down – and, remember, I'm just lending that, so I'll expect you to bring it back when you return."

Hermione smiled up at him. "When I return," she repeated, her faint emphasis on the _when_ making it clear that she understood her beau's real meaning. "Yes, I will. I promise."

Draco nodded. Not trusting himself to speak further, he turned and picked up the rose; Hermione opened her mouth, and he laid it gently astraddle her lower molars. She shut her eyes, bit down, and scrunched up her face in concentration; Draco stepped back, raised his wand, and counted down: _three… two… one…_

He permitted himself one last look upon her face, and spoke the spell.

* * *

 _"Dear Arabella Fig, We are so happy that you are taking Harry in!"_ –Phoenix Tears, "What Happened There"

"I just want to thank you again, ma'am," said Harry. "It really was too kind of you, to come and let me live with you in this beautiful kitchen."

"Oh, don't mention it, dearie," said Arabella airily. "It would be silly of me, of all people, to ignore what the Bible says about caring for orphans – and, anyway, I do need a partner if I'm going to do this show properly."

Harry glanced up at the clock. "Speaking of which, isn't it about time we started filming?"

Arabella glanced up, too. "Oh, my goodness, yes, it is," she said. "All right, Harry, follow me."

The two of them hopped out onto the countertop; the cameras started rolling, and Arabella launched into the intro. "Hi, kids, and welcome to Fruit Tales! I'm Arabella Fig…"

"And I'm Harry Persimmon! And we're here to answer your questions!"


	18. Note, Disease, Wreaking, OK

_"Neville looked astounded and grabbed the mote Harry was brandishing."_ –Moonprincess92, "Of Octopuses, Scandal and Dragons"

"Harry, you're right!" he exclaimed, after a moment's examination of the almost invisible speck between his thumb and forefinger. "This is it! This is the Mystic Dust Mote of Urquhart the Untidy, said to bring unlimited power to whoever holds it! Lost for six hundred years after his wife cleaned his study, and now it's resurfaced here at Hogwarts! Harry, this is brilliant!"

"Isn't it?" said Harry with a grin. "No more practising counter-curses or hunting for Horcruxes; the next time Voldemort shows his ugly face, we just brandish the Mote at him, and – boom!"

"BOOM!" Neville echoed enthusiastically, stretching out his arms at full length, his fingers outspread for full dramatic effect.

Then his eyes suddenly widened with horror, and he jerked his elbow back into the acute and stared frantically at his entirely un-dusty finger. "Urk…"

Harry's jaw dropped. "Neville, you didn't…"

"No, it's all right, Harry!" said Neville, dropping to his hands and knees and running his eyes frantically over the floor. "It has to be here somewhere, it… oh, Gwydion's underdrawers, why do we need shag carpeting in the common room anyway?… it can't have flown very… _no, Hermione, get away with that vacuum cleaner!_ "

* * *

 _"She had pretty much got the Bellatrix decease, Andromeda thought, smiling darkly."_ –Mia-Zeklos, "The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black"

"I just don't get it," Narcissa murmured. "How could Bellatrix have died, just… just like that? She was fine when we went to bed last night, and now…" She shook her head. "It doesn't make sense."

"Oh, I don't know," said Andromeda. "If you look at it another way, her decease is perfectly natural. After all, she did have her nightly glass of tea before retiring – and she had been making typically hateful remarks about Muggle-borns earlier that evening…"

"What?" Narcissa's eyes widened. "You don't mean… Andromeda, you _can't_ mean…"

"And," Andromeda continued, with merciless emphasis, "she did have a sister who was in the kitchen while her tea was seething; whose skill and subtlety in potion preparation remains a Hogwarts legend; and who will permit no-one – _no-one_ – to insult her fiancé in her presence, either specifically or generically." She fixed her sister with a darkly meaningful stare. "Get it yet, Cissy?"

Narcissa swallowed. "Got it."

"Good."

* * *

 _"Oh, because marauding around the place wrecking havoc isn't what you do?"_ –gpfs17, summary to "How to Become a Rebel"

"You did slip the stuff in, right?" Avery whispered to Mulciber.

Mulciber nodded. "Don't worry, Nick," he whispered back. "As soon as Slughorn's cauldron comes to a boil, this dungeon and all of Hogwarts will be engulfed in all the havoc that Dumbledore's worst enemy could wish."

Avery grinned, and the two of them fixed the steaming cauldron with expectant stares. Any minute now…

Then, unexpectedly, the doors of the dungeon burst open, and Sirius Black, incongruously garbed in a black bolero, mask, and cape, ran into the Potions classroom, leapt onto Eloise Braddock's desk, and thrust his wand out toward the cauldron. " _Accio Crushed Cydia Moths!_ " he shouted – and, with a hissing spurt, five nearly-dissolved insect carcasses shot from the mass of simmering fear philtre and careened straight toward the young Gryffindor, who whipped off his hat and caught them all neatly on its brim.

Slughorn paled. "Merlin's beard!" he exclaimed. "Merlin's… how did those get in there?"

He was answered almost immediately, as Avery, despite Mulciber's frantic elbow in his side, blurted out, "You wrecked it!"

"But of course, Señor," Sirius replied in an affected Spanish accent, returning the bolero to his head as he spoke. "Eef 'Ogwarts ees een need of 'avoc, _El Padfoot_ weel provide eet, not _vosotros serpientes censurados_."

"Do you mean to say," said Slughorn, aghast, "that these two really tried to… that they… well, I'm dashed! Mr Avery, Mr Mulciber, a month's detention for each of you, and thirty points apiece from Slytherin! And the same number to Gryffindor, Mr Black, for your prompt and decisive action."

" _Gracias, Profesor,_ " said Sirius with a bow. "And now I must return to _la Historia Mágica_ , before Señor Binns misses a dashing young hidalgo from his class. Farewell and adieu to you, fine English ladies!"

And he leapt back down from the desk and vanished again into the corridor, leaving no trace of his passing except a glowing P on the dungeon door.

* * *

 _"Ok, the first thing we need to do is practice our harem skills."_ –Rorschach's Blot, "Hermione the Harem Girl"

"Ah," said Ok Taecyeon. "Well, is it all right if we rehearse while you're doing that? We have a concert in Taegu on Friday, and we need to get some new songs worked out."

"Of course," said Hermione. "That's why we're doing it here: so as to have a properly Oriental musical setting while we hone our powers of polygamous intrigue. Do you know Rimsky-Korsakov's 'Scheherazade'?"

"No."

"Mm. Well, anyway, do try and play in some nice, connivingly lubricious key, would you?"

"Oh, yes," said Taecyeon vaguely. "Yes, fine."

He turned back to the stage, murmuring an indefensible generalisation about Occidental womanhood; Hermione, in her turn, rotated to face her own companions. "Okay, girls!" she said brightly, as the members of 2PM began to tune up behind her. "Let's back-stab!"


	19. Dessert, Merlin's, Caster, I

_"'Half of my desert for a day,' Ron said quickly. 'I just want you to look up a word.'"_ –Rorschach's Blot, "Hermione the Harem Girl"

"Really?" said Neville, arching an eyebrow. "Must be quite a word, if you're willing to sacrifice half your realm for it, even temporarily. Which half, by the way?"

"The one that adjoins your jungle, of course," said Ron impatiently. "The eastern half."

"Where the diamond mines are," Neville mused. " _Quite_ a word."

"Look, it wasn't my idea," said Ron. "It's just that the only Curupi dictionary in this school is in your castle's library, and Hermione thinks that she could work out a plan to painlessly defeat You-Know-Who if she could figure out one particular allusion in the annals of the Paraguayan Jesuits. Under the circumstances, I think I can swallow having to trust you with my desert for a few hours."

"Or half of it, anyway," Neville remarked.

"Right."

Neville nodded. "All right, it's a deal," he said, and chuckled. "And to think, Gran tried to discourage me from picking the jungle when Dumbledore was assigning the Lands Within to the former D.A. members. Said it was full of nasty tropical parasites, and I'd be sure to get some weird disease that would make my privates turn green and fall off."

"And did you?" said Ron, intrigued.

"That's beside the point," said Neville sharply.

* * *

 _"Harry Potter? Is it really? Merlins beard!"_ –Monster In The Dark, "That Dumbledore!"

Snape's lip curled. "Yes, I know they do," he said. "I myself have been bearded by merlins on multiple occasions. But I fail to see, Lupin, how the tendency of pigeon hawks toward insolent defiance renders Potter any less likely to be the author of this letter."

"Well, take another look at it," said Lupin. "Doesn't the handwriting seem a bit awkward – almost as though the quill were being grasped in a claw rather than a hand? And the expressions used: 'won't let you clip my pinions'; 'won't be your tiercel any longer' – you know what a tiercel is, don't you, Snape?"

Snape studied the parchment again, and began to feel a certain unease. "Then you think," he said slowly, "that Mr Henery…"

"Most likely," said Lupin. "You haven't been exactly easy on the Nephelococcygian transfer students, you know; even Miss Olor has complained about your overbearing approach. And anyone who moves even a mute swan to speak out," he added wisely, "oughtn't to be surprised when a merlin beards him."

* * *

 _"He continued to weep for the dark robed castor, even as the energy from the spell faded."_ –TheDragonsTale, "When Life Is Lost"

"Harry," Hermione whispered, nudging her friend gently, "come on, we need to finish this potion. I've exposed the castor to the light energy of three minutes' _Lumos_ , and now you need to…"

"B-but it was so _beautiful_!" Harry bawled, drawing a number of odd stares from his classmates. "Such a becoming reddish-brown, and so adorably shaped into a little effigy of Merlin – and you just tore off its robe, and mashed it up, and _boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!_ "

"Harry," said Hermione through her teeth, her already limited patience rapidly fading, "it's a secretion from a beaver's groin region, dressed up and sculpted for marketing purposes. Now, can we please…"

"No," Harry whimpered. "It was more than that… it was tender, and precious, and…"

"Something wrong, Potter?"

It was remarkable what a sobering effect Snape's sudden appearance had on Harry. He abruptly jerked his head up, blinked the moisture out of his eyes, and spoke in a firm if rather hoarse tone. "No… no, Professor," he said. "Nothing's wrong."

"Good," said Snape, with a nasty gleam in his eye. "I'd hate to think I had taken ten points from Gryffindor just because you'd had bad news from home. And now, perhaps you and Miss Granger would see fit to carry on with the assignment…"

* * *

 _"Looking him in the eye with false bravado, she spoke firmly, 'My magic wants you, Sirius, not me.'"_ –nottonyharrison, "What Is and What Should Never Be"

"What?" said Sirius. "That's ridiculous. What would I do with your magic, when I have plenty of my own? And whoever heard of a witch's magic not wanting her, anyway?"

"Oh, it's been documented before," said Hermione, still trying to act cool and nonchalant. "Apparently I overworked my magic by so much study and practice at such a young age – too much too fast, you know – and now it's rebelled and won't work for me any longer. And it's settled on you as someone who will give it the rest it wants, on account of your opportunities for spellwork being so limited during my acquaintance with you – and of course the fact of my living under your roof predisposed it in that direction anyway. So now all I have to do is touch you, and my magical soul will transfer to you and mingle itself with your own; you'll become the most naturally powerful wizard on Earth, and I –" here her bravado nearly broke down, but she rallied and finished "– will rejoin the Muggle world I was born into."

"And if I don't touch you?" said Sirius.

"Then I'll probably turn slowly into stone over the course of the next year," said Hermione. "That's the most usual result of retaining magic that wants another. And, if it's all the same to you, I'd much rather be a Muggle than a statue."

Then Sirius consented; Hermione reached out and pressed her hand to his cheek, and he felt her magic enter into him. It took perhaps thirty seconds, at the end of which Hermione withdrew her hand, her lower lip trembling violently, and turned and walked out of the room without a word.

The next morning, she was gone; her wand lay broken on her bedside table, and no clue remained as to where she might have gone. Sirius, understanding her reasons, never made any enquiries; others did, but their quarry's knowledge and cleverness proved sufficient to baffle them. And so it came about that Harry Potter, though he did eventually triumph over Lord Voldemort (thanks in no small part to the newly superhuman magical powers of his godfather), lost, in the process, the nearest thing to a sister that he had ever known.


	20. Hannah, Lo, Siren, Cannon

_"They arrived at the meeting place to find Susan and Hanna waiting for them with twin looks of expectation on their faces."_ –Rorschach's Blot, "Odd Ideas"

"Well?" said the Hufflepuff girl and the 19th-Century Republican operative simultaneously.

Hermione sighed. "Well, the good news is that we can get Mr Hanna back to 1900," she said. "The bad news, though, is that there's no safe moment to reinstate him before mid-November – and, according to Flitwick's Reality Plot, his absence will inevitably render the McKinley campaign unable to defeat Bryan a second time. I know you weren't _trying_ to alter history when you cast that spell, Susan, but…"

"What!" Hanna burst out. "You mean to say that that madman from Omaha will actually get his chance to despoil the country, the way he's been threatening to do since '96?"

"Not much of a chance, no," Luna remarked matter-of-factly. "Susan didn't do anything about Mr Czolgosz, after all, and there's no reason for Mr Bryan to stay away from the Exposition, so he'll only have a few months as president before he dies. Too bad," she added thoughtfully. "He seemed a nice man – and so much more sensible about that whole evolution business than Mr Darrow."

Hermione gave her a sidewise glance, and then shook her head and returned her attention to Susan and Hanna. "No, but that doesn't diminish the danger to history," she said, "With Adlai Stevenson succeeding to the presidency instead of Roosevelt, half a dozen things that should happen won't – the Panama Canal, most obviously – and probably a few things that shouldn't happen will. And, more generally, the whole 20th-Century attitude toward powerful leaders will lose its primary inspiration, with incalculable consequences for…"

"Wait – wait a moment," said Hanna, with a frown. "You mean to say, Miss Granger, that, if I hadn't been brought here, McKinley would have been killed, and… and _Theodore Roosevelt_ would have become president?"

"Oh, yes," said Hermione.

At this, an extraordinary expression came over Mark Hanna's face, as of one who had narrowly escaped a fate worse than death. "Well, then, Miss Bones," he said, turning and clasping the startled Susan's hand fervently in his own, "on behalf of the American people, please accept my humble thanks for your decisive and beneficent action."

* * *

 _"Harry soon realized that he had the worst possible luck because, low and_ behold _, Hermione was not the same."_ –Slinky-and-the-BloodyWands, "How Hogwarts Became a Nudist Colony"

As Harry dropped himself onto the common-room couch, the look on his face told Ron everything he needed to know. "So," said the latter. "I'm guessing Hermione _is_ , in fact, allergic to griffin-fly stings?"

"Of course," said Harry dryly. "She's _my_ friend, isn't she? Of course she's the one case in sixty-seven. I'm a jinx, I tell you – a walking cauldron of Dolor Doloris."

"Oh, it's not that bad," said Ron (though he weakened his case somewhat by unconsciously scooting away from Harry as he spoke). "I mean, at least we got her into a safe place in time, and worked out a secret signal to give before she lets anyone see her. I know it's pretty hard lines, but imagine how much worse it would be if the whole school knew about it."

Though, in fact, neither of them would need to imagine much longer. Unbeknownst to Harry, prying grey eyes had been watching as he checked up on Hermione, and the word was already going around the Slytherin common room: "Ever want to see what the Granger girl would look like with feathers and a cat's arse? Just go up to Hagrid's hut sometime, low like a heifer, and – _behold!_ "

* * *

 _"They had their reasons for keeping their only daughter away from the public, she was a sire."_ –AimeeWeasley1, "Moony, Wormtail, Patfoot, Prongs and Hermione?"

"You're a friend of James Potter's, aren't you, Black?" said Lucius Malfoy.

"So he tells me," said Sirius.

"Well, you tell him from me," said Lucius, his face darkening into a highly unbecoming scowl, "that if that sister of his ever shows her face in decent society again, either my father or I will curse it off her, and count the time in Azkaban well spent. _Nobody_ makes game of the House of Malfoy's hallowed traditions, not even Hermione Potter. You understand?"

"Perfectly," said Sirius. "I'll let him know."

As Lucius made a satisfied noise and walked away, Sirius reflected how right Mr and Mrs Potter had been to confine Hermione to the family manor after her little exploit had come out. He had assumed, at first, that it was just because she had fooled around with a brute animal and gotten herself pregnant at sixteen; it hadn't occurred to him that her having simultaneously become a female sire could put her in any kind of danger. In retrospect, though, it should have been obvious that the all-male pure-blood families who swore by the Rites of Mapreg might not care to be reminded that those rites cut both ways.

He shook his head. James surely had the craziest twin sister in England; imagine having the choice of the whole animal kingdom to turn into, and electing to become a slug just to prove how stupid the other people were who did so. Not only did it spoil her for full-moon adventures, it ruined the Marauder-nickname pattern; she'd stubbornly maintained that, since her real name began with the same syllable as "hermaphroditic", it was itself a perfectly serviceable indicator of her Animagus form, so she wasn't about to let herself be called anything so silly as "Prongs" or "Patfoot". "What does that even mean, anyway?" she'd demanded of Sirius once. "Did you know someone named Pat who had feet like a dog's, or what?"

"Yes," said Sirius facetiously. "Pat O'Kane, in Ravenclaw. Hairiest girl I even went out with." (In fact, his nickname was in memory of his family greyhound, Corker, who had been trained to play patty-cake with him as a baby. But there was no need for Hermione to know this.)

* * *

 _"The gun shot rang out like a loud canon through the silent sky as Draco unclenched his eyes."_ –Uzamaki-Girl, "A Monster Is Born"

"That's it, Draco!" came Pansy Parkinson's excited voice over the radio. "The muffling field is officially down! Just keep hammering away with your Harmony Gun, and the entire goblin army should be prostrate by nightfall!"

Draco acknowledged her briefly, straightened his helmet, and began firing in earnest. The baroque strains of Pachelbel's Canon reverberated thunderously through the air, and the goblins on the battlefield below began screaming and flinging themselves onto the ground, trying desperately to shield their ears from the, to them, toxic effects of human music.

"Eat your heart out, Curdie," the young aristocrat drawled.


	21. Tic, Popped Into, 1946-47, Damning

_"He couldn't quite read the meaning behind her facial tick."_ –aestel, "Yes, But"

"Well done, Miss Tonks," said Snape, returning her bottle of Spasming Solution to her desk. "A few more potions like this, and you just might scrape an O after all."

"Much obliged, I'm sure, Professor," said Tonks with a grin. "Won't you thank the nice professor, Sulpicius?" And she gave a nudge with her wand to the magically engorged tick that squatted on her left cheek.

Snape rolled his eyes. Nymphadora Tonks baffled him in many ways, but this business of her facial tick was the worst of all; he always had a sense that, by coming into all his classes with an overgrown parasitic arachnid so conspicuously feeding on her life-blood, she was trying to convey a definite meaning to him that he could never quite read. He had even confronted her about it once, and she'd just looked at him with wide-eyed innocence and said, "Don't know what you mean, I'm sure, sir. He's quite harmless, according to Professor Dumbledore – Kettleburn, I mean."

 _Well,_ Snape thought now, with a resigned sigh, _I never_ did _claim to understand women._

* * *

 _"This work was a little something that poped in my head this morning."_ –AngelAmore, author's note to "The Injured Ferret"

 _"With a sincere heart, therefore,"_ The Injured Ferret _recited, "and with unfeigned faith, I detest and abjure every error, heresy, and sect opposed to the said Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Roman Church. So help me God and these Gospels, which I touch with my hand."_

 _The Bishop smiled, and motioned for the work and its sponsor to come forward._ Lies Bathilda Bagshot Told Me _placed a reassuring hand on its younger friend's shoulder, and led it toward the altar rail. "Your Excellency," it said, "may I present Colossians."_

 _The Bishop nodded in approval of this choice of confirmation name. "Colossians," he said, dipping his finger in chrism and reaching toward_ The Injured Ferret _'s forehead, "be sealed with the Holy…"_

At this juncture, AngelAmore awoke with a start, and the surreal image of a work of fiction "poping" from Protestantism to Catholicism vanished like the mid-morning dream that it had, in fact, been. Only the solid reality of the Durmstrang dormitory remained, the Dark beasts carved into its walls leering overhead as though to sneer at all such dreams of repentance and grace.*

"Well, that settles it," the young author murmured, rolling over and snuggling back under the blankets. "I have _got_ to stop eating Chocolate Cauldrons so late at night."

* * *

 _"After a drunken one night stand, Minerva tells Tom that she's pregnant. Plans for world domination are derailed somewhat. Set in 194647."_ –Vivien B, summary to "A Beneficial Arrangement"

"You're sure?" Tom demanded.

Minerva smiled wanly. "Pregnancy tests have come a long way since our day, Tom," she said. "Yes, I'm sure. And it's no good groaning that way," she added sharply. "It was your idea for me to have that drinking contest with Nar Z'Pee…"

"Yes, of course," said Tom irritably. "I thought it might loosen his tongue, make him drop some hints about the nature of magic in this era, maybe even show us the way into the Palace of Green Porcelain. It didn't occur to me that _you_ could possibly get sloshed enough to want to have a subterranean ape-man's love child."

"No, I suppose it didn't," said Minerva. "But I could, and I did, and now I will. So I'm afraid our little scheme to become the Emperor and Empress of Time is going to have to be put on the back kettle for a while; I'm not putting any baby of mine at risk with another time trip, whether it's half-Morlock or no."

 _Typical,_ Tom thought, scowling to himself. _I should never have turned her in the first place; I should have known that she'd end up slowing me down somehow. Whether it's the 20_ _th_ _Century or A.D. 194647, some things just never change._

* * *

 _"I heard you damming us"_ –LucyLuna, "A Warning"

At first, it was just a vague rumble far to the north – nothing that the Narcissa River thought worthy of her attention. But then, as the days passed and it failed to subside (indeed, if anything, it got louder and more persistent as time went on), she decided that it couldn't hurt to cast her consciousness downstream a ways and see what was going on.

So she poured herself out along her pure, glistening current, expecting to find a human erecting some bridge or riverfront hostelry a decent distance from her surface. Words were inadequate to her surprise and horror when she saw the reality: an immense hydroelectric dam, in the early stages of construction, being thrown up about a mile past the point where she joined with the Bellatrix and the other tributaries to form the majestic Black Nile.

She glared up at the engineer in charge, as though demanding an explanation of this monstrous outrage – and then her liquid eyes widened in understanding. Yes, there was no mistaking that face, that figure, that insufferably insolent carriage; it was none other than her former tributary the Sirius, who had once irrigated a whole southwestern corner of the continent – who had betrayed their whole river system when offered the form and power of a man – whose bank now stood, dry and barren and studded with the bones of his fishes, as a testimony to his shamelessness. Of course, only he would dare to dam the Black Nile – and, in his scorn and envy of the life he had left behind, of course he would try to do just that.

 _All right, little cousin,_ she thought, roiling in her depths from source to delta. _All right, little_ man _. You want to challenge the waters of Tujurpur? You want war? Then war you shall have._

* * *

*No, of course AngelAmore isn't actually a Durmstrang student – but I had to make the scene into Harry Potter ff somehow, didn't I?


	22. Mantel, Moulded, Vicious, Burr

_"He was startled out of his thoughts when the clock on the mantle had chimed out the three quarter hour."_ –seann-triubhas, "The Vile Nine"

"My Lord?"

"Oh!" Voldemort jumped. "Oh… ah… Wormtail, yes. I'm sorry, I was just pondering which of Dumbledore's vital organs I should tear out first, when I have the chance."

Wormtail nodded. "Of course, yes, My Lord," he said. "But I was just thinking, isn't it about time we Flooed to the Manor to help set up Narcissa's surprise party?"

"Oh, no, that's not necessary," said Voldemort. "Lucius isn't expecting us until half past three, and right now it's only a quarter to. You see?" He took off his mantle, and showed Wormtail the elaborate steam clock attached to the hood. "A quarter to, exactly. It chimed just before you came in."

Wormtail bowed acquiescently; in the back of his mind, though, was the thought that his master's mantle clock always had a tendency to run rather slow, on account of the difficulty of keeping it wound. (Why he didn't just wear a watch, like normal people… But that was the sort of remark one did not make to Lord Voldemort.)

* * *

 _"The boy needed to be melded into a weapon."_ –Ebenbild, "Family Secrets"

"He _Vanished_ it?" said Harry, incredulous.

"It was his only chance," said Dumbledore. "He'd long since deduced my holding, and knew that the set of three jacks on the table was my surest weapon against him; by melding the jack of hearts into it and then removing the jack of spades, I could go out on the next play. Somehow, he must have looked into the stock and seen where the dangerous card lay; when it came up, he simply cast a wordless spell under the table, and…" He waved his hand expressively.

"The crook!" Harry exclaimed fervently.

Dumbledore shrugged philosophically. "Well, he is still Lord Voldemort, after all," he said. "And so now, in order to defeat him, we must replace that jack atop the stock. But the difficulty is that playing cards, because of their age-old magical significations, cannot be transfigured out of just anything; the material must be symbolised by the card it becomes. And the jack of hearts, traditionally, symbolises a young man with a noble spirit and an immense capacity for love – so, Harry, if you don't mind…?"

"Oh, no, go ahead, Professor," said Harry. "I'm just sorry you got roped into it to begin with; the whole thing's a pretty filthy business, if you ask me."

Dumbledore smiled grimly. "Yes, people say that wizards' chess is a rough game," he said, "but it is, as the old saying goes, not a patch on wizards' rummy."

* * *

 _"But his family has a notorious history for holding onto grudges and being rather viscous."_ –Carumati, "The Lexicon: Plot Snorkacks"

"Remember me, Fortie?"

Fortunatus Schneider whirled around, and stared at the dark-haired young woman behind him. "Why… yes, of course, Bellatrix Black!" he said. "Good heavens, it's been a while, hasn't it? What brings you to Cape Town?"

Bellatrix laughed harshly. "Oh, come now, Fortie," she said. "Surely you haven't forgotten. Potions class? Third year? 6 December? You joggled my elbow reaching for a beaker, and made me spill an extra slosh of frogspawn into my cauldron; it spoiled my whole Yodeling Draught, and brought my grade average down so far that Mother revoked my Hogsmeade privileges for the rest of the winter. And now, at last, here we are – thousands of miles from Hogwarts, without any teachers or protective enchantments to interfere; now, at last, you'll get what's coming to you."

Fortunatus blinked. "What? Bellatrix, you don't mean… that was…"

"You should have known better, Fortie," said Bellatrix, her skin already beginning to liquefy. "You should have known that a Black never forgets an injury; when once we're wronged, we don't rest until we've settled the score – and our distant kinship with the Blobwights of Ambergate ensures that we can."

"No!" Fortunatus yelped. "No, Bellatrix, wait, it wasn't… I didn't… I'll… Bellatrix, please!"

But there was no Bellatrix anymore – only an immense, viscous, gelatinous thing, blotched with diseased and evil grey, with hot and vengeful wrath shining through the white holes that had been her eyes. Then Fortunatus's nerve broke entirely, and he screamed and ran – but not, of course, fast enough.

* * *

 _"Hermione stuck her head out into the hallway, and heard what sounded like a [S]cottish bur."_ * –Topshoteffect, "Harry Potter: Slytherin Heir"

She glanced down at the floor; yes, there old Angus was, cursing with all the richness of his Gaelic vocabulary as his tiny thorns latched onto one tuft of carpeting after another. With a giggle, she reached down and lifted him between her thumb and forefinger. "Going my way, old blossom?" she said.

"Aye, if ye're a-goin' to the kitchen for the Order meetin'," the little thistle bur grumbled. "Sure and I've been tellin' Molly many a day now, there's nae a lick o' sense in coverin' up good stone with wool this way. 'Tis naught but sinful vanity, and that I'll maintain to me dyin' breath."

"You breathe?" said Hermione, surprised.

"'Tis but a manner o' speakin'," Angus snapped. "Dinna be makin' a pest o' yourself, lassie."

* * *

*Interestingly, this one wouldn't be correct even if the spelling was fixed. A burr, I find, is not a Scottish phonetic habit at all; it's the gutturalized R sound one hears in France and Northumberland, as opposed to the trilled R characteristic of the Gaels.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Sorting-Head tip to for finding the quote for "Vicious".


	23. Hide In, Greater, Penchant, He

_"You are a dunderhead. Kindly find another cellar to hide."_ –Ebenbild, "Family Secrets"

"Well, but Severus," Regulus tried to explain, "it's not about hiding cellars in the abstract. It's just that the Dark Lord forgot to bring his Slytherin locket when he came to your house to kill your charwoman, so he had to use a different antique to store his latest soul fragment. And he happened to be standing next to your silver cabinet, so…"

"Yes, yes," said Severus. "That's all a very good story, Black, but I know you too well to believe it. You just think, as your brother might, that it would be a marvellous lark to make me hand over my grandmother's Diamond Jubilee commemorative salt-cellar and hide it in an Inferius-patrolled cave somewhere in Cornwall, and so you come to me with this cock-and-bull story about it being the Dark Lord's Horcrux. I'm sorry, Black, but I wasn't born yesterday."

Regulus opened his mouth to reply, then decided against it; he knew that mulish look of Severus's too well to think it would do any good. "Okay, fine," he muttered. "But when the Order comes calling with a handful of basilisk fangs, don't say I didn't warn you."

* * *

 _"Is a murder in the name of a grater good less terrifying than the others?"_ –Trickynixie, "No Death, No Hallowing"

"Ha-ha!" Gellert Grindelwald exulted over the prone corpse of the Muggle manufacturer. "That'll teach you to flood the market with cheap kitchen utensils, Hutzler. Come on, Albus, we've got three more stops."

"Gellert, I'm not sure about this," said Albus Dumbledore hesitantly. "Of course, I do agree with you that the mass-produced plastic cheese grater is an abomination before God and man, but doesn't this method of getting rid of it seem… I don't know, a little extreme?"

"Extremity is what industrialism has driven us to, Albus," said Gellert firmly. "Come on, be a man. Remember, it's not just the grater good we're serving: there's the colander good, and the orange-peeler good, and half a hundred others besides. We _can't_ turn back from the enterprise, now it's begun."

But, all the same, Albus didn't sleep well that night.

* * *

 _"Although he still had a pension for hexing students that crossed him…"_ –VictoriousNagini, "For Art Thou Lily"

"I'm sorry to hear that you're retiring at the end of this year, Mr Potter," said the Headmaster. "You've been the finest vindictive-S.O.B.-in-residence that Hogwarts has ever seen; the students positively flee in terror when they so much as hear your footsteps."

"They should know better than to cross me, then," James grunted.

"No doubt, no doubt," said the Headmaster. "All I'm saying is, you'll be hard to replace. But, if you're sure…"

"I am," said James. "The job's been keeping me too busy lately; it's making me neglect my duties to my family. Lily and Harry need their brains hexed out now and then, too, you know."

"Of course, yes," said the Headmaster. "Well, then, of course you'll receive a full pension in consideration of services rendered – and, if I can swing it, probably some special going-away present from the school as well. An engraving, perhaps, of young Martin Snape covered in those winged leeches of yours: how does that strike you?"

James grinned darkly. "Now that I'd treasure, sir."

* * *

 _"Oliver went through a few more poses as Colin photographed him, then removed the pieces of armour his still wore."_ –0anon0, "Paparazzi"

"You see, I always keep it carefully wrapped up in this magic-impervious plate mail," he said, "lest Filch or someone should get an itch to interfere with my little sideline. It's really a lovely little bit of bootlegging machinery; you want to snap it a couple times, too, Creevey?"

"Absolutely," said Colin, and raised his camera to the ready again.

"So that's pretty much all about it," said Oliver over the popping flashbulb. "Have enough for your article yet, Lovegood?"

"Yes, I think so," said Luna, flipping her notebook shut. "'The Secret Moonshine Trade at Hogwarts': if that won't pick up Dad's circulation, I don't know what will. –All right, Colin, I think that's enough pictures of Mr Wood's still."


	24. Psychology, There, Lady, Past

_"Voldemort watched the little scene go down with rapt interest. He always enjoyed phycology…"_ –jCOOLn, "Young Lord"

Bellatrix Lestrange knocked lightly on the lintel of the laboratory door. "My Lord?" she said. "Dolohov brought in another batch of Muggle prisoners, if you…"

"Oh, yes, of course," said Voldemort. "Have him shoot them into the parlour, and I'll attend to them momentarily."

He raised his head from his microscope, and heaved a contented sigh. "You know, I really am a most fortunate man," he said. "All these chances to viciously murder people, torture them into madness, watch mortal fear expose the venal bestiality within them… and then, when I'm tired of that, I can come in here and study the effects of ultraviolet light on _Nereocystis_ seaweed. What more could one ask of life?"

Bellatrix smiled a little ruefully. She would have liked, herself, to be the something more he asked – but she knew it could never be. In the Dark Lord's heart, there was room for only two loves: the Unforgivable Curses and experimental phycology.

"What, indeed, My Lord?" she said. "What, indeed?"

* * *

 _"The ceremony was beautiful and her parents cried. They were the only [M]uggles present and all in all they were about twenty guests."_ –misgiving, "Wedding Blues"

"Winky!" Dobby exclaimed. "You has not set enough places for Miss Granger's parents!"

Winky stared. "They is more than two guests?" she said.

"They is about twenty," said Dobby. "Does you not know? Miss Granger is being born to a Bari woman and her three paramours, adopted by a Muslim dentist and his four wives, and abducted when she is six years old by a robber band and raised as their collective daughter. That is why she is so clever," he added knowingly. "Peoples from unconventional backgrounds is always having more intellectual stimulation and broader horizons than is the benighted products of the traditional family."

Winky sniffed. "Who is telling you that, Dobby?" she said.

"Miss Granger is," said Dobby. "And she is having nineteen parents, so it must be true. Now quick, Winky, the extra napkin rings!"

* * *

 _"We need to have a long overdue discussion[,] young lay, but it can wait until after lunch."_ –Scififan33, "A Plea for Help Can Change Lives"

"Now, then," said Mrs Granger, pulling her daughter off the bookshelf and gazing down at her sternly, "what's this I hear about you and the young Malfoy novel?"

Hermione ruffled her pages sheepishly. "Well, you know," she murmured, "we are Head Boy and Girl this year, and he is very… I mean, that dust-jacket illustration of his, it just…" She swallowed, and gazed up at her mother with tremulous Russian-woodcut eyes. "You don't approve?"

Mrs Granger shook her head. "I may be only a Muggle, darling," she said, "but I still knew, the day I gave birth to a sentient leather-bound edition of _The Lay of the Warfare Waged by Igor_ , that she was destined for something special. I'm not going to stand by and let her squander herself on some common bodice-ripper with a fancy cover and a nice house."

Hermione sighed. "No, I suppose not," she said. "But it was nice, all the same. Do you know what he said to me at the Halloween Feast? 'Finally it is our long-awaited meeting-night. May the autumn mists spread across the river of Heaven, that dawn may never come!'"

"Pshaw," said Mrs Granger. "He cribbed that out of that Goyle friend of his. Don't you know _tanka_ poetry when you hear it?"

* * *

 _"Severus Snape finds himself sentenced to community work for his pas mistakes…"_ –charlottenbronte, summary to "Severus Snape's Sea Change"

Bartemius Crouch glowered down at the prisoner before him. "Severus Snape," he said. "You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law to receive sentence for your appalling crimes against wizardkind. Have you anything to say in your defence?"

"Need I bother?" said Snape. "You've already heard Professor Dumbledore's testimony that I'd renounced the Death Eaters and joined his side; if he didn't persuade you, I hardly can."

Crouch stared. "Death Eaters?" he said. "What have the Death Eaters to do with anything?"

Snape blinked. "Well… my crimes against wizardkind…"

"Just so," said Crouch. "We have heard the evidence against you; no fewer than seventy people can testify that, on 28 February 1975, while appearing in a Hogwarts student performance of _Swan Lake_ , you made three separate missteps during the Black Swan Pas de Deux, causing your partner to visibly stumble and inspiring the onlookers to muffled giggles."

"Oh," said Snape. "Well… yes, that's true. But…"

"But nothing!" Crouch snapped, leaning red-faced out of his chair and thrusting an accusing finger forward. "They _giggled_ , Snape! At one of the great musical achievements of Western civilisation! Because of _you!_ You foul little verminous greaseball, I ought to blow your brains out your ears right where you stand!"

With a visible effort, he got sufficient control of himself to add, "Unfortunately, the misguided clemency of the jury won't permit me to give you anything worse than five years' community service." He rapped his gavel, his hand still trembling. "It is so ruled. Now get out of my sight before I vomit."

As Snape nodded and hurried out of the courtroom, he heard the bailiff announce behind him, "Next case! Mistress Narcissa Malfoy, _née_ Black, convicted of missing the high F above high C while performing ' _Il dolce suono mi colpì di sua voce_ '!"

* * *

 **Author's note:** Sorting-Head tip to .5 for locating the "Lady" passage.


	25. Michael, Aisles, Piers, Be

_"Michal settled down next to the portrait of the Fat Lady to wait, lost in thoughts of Ginny's body."_ –the Wolf at Bay, "Harry Potter and the Witch of Destiny"

"Knut for your thoughts, dearie?" said the Fat Lady.

Michal roused herself, and assumed an air of attempted carelessness. "Oh, I was just thinking of Mrs Potter," she said. "How blessed she is – only five years married, and her third child already on the way…"

"Ah," said the Fat Lady knowingly. "Jealous, are we?"

Michal flushed. "Well, why not?" she demanded, her father's notorious temper flaring in her eyes. "Even the accursed of the Lord may yearn for what He has seen fit to withhold."

The Fat Lady, who shared with the Almighty the distaste for prudishness that had gotten the Hebrew princess struck barren, swallowed back the reply she would have liked to make. "No doubt, no doubt," was all she said. "If you'll take my advice, though, you'd do better to think of what you're going to say to the Headmistress when Mrs Potter gets back here with her. It isn't every day that someone falls out of Bible times into Godric's Hollow; I daresay she'll need a very complete description of the process in order to undo it."

Michal cocked her head. "Falls out of what kind of times?"

The Fat Lady hesitated, then shook her head. "Never mind, dearie," she said. "It's a long story."

* * *

 _"_ 'I need new friends[,]' _Malfoy thought, sighing as he tramped down the isles, looking for an empty booth."_ –OhHeyWassup, "And So the Search Began"

"Attention, giant!" came the voice through the bullhorn. "This is Her Majesty's Coastguard! Cease your attacks on British soil, or prepare to be shot down!"

Draco swore under his breath. "Listen, you stupid Muggles," he said, "I'm not pulverising these isles just for the fun of it; in fact, between you and me, these jagged rocks of theirs aren't doing my feet any favours. But Flitwick says that the only way of reversing that idiot Crabbe's _Engorgio_ charm is hidden in Merlin's old booth from one of the Wizards' Fairs of Scilly; it should still be buried under one of the Isles, only nobody seems to know which. If you object to my lack of finesse, you might offer to come and help me look, instead of…"

"That sound like surrender to you, Mr Gore?" said the captain of the Coastguard vessel.

"No, sir," said his first mate. "Sounds like downright insolence to me. I'd say old Rumblebuffin needs to be taught a little lesson."

"Agreed," said the captain. "Mr Markham! Fire anti-aircraft guns!"

 _I_ really _need new friends,_ Draco thought.

* * *

 _"Dudley and Pierce just fell into the cage and the snake escaped somehow."_ –I Ate Your Muffin, "Potter"

"Really?" said Dumbledore mildly. "Dear me, your cousin created a regular sea of troubles when he stowed away on the Time Zoo, didn't he? I do hope he's learnt his lesson."

"But what are we going to do, Professor?" Harry insisted. "That thing hasn't been fed since we left the Palæocene, and we know how much it likes the taste of primates. I don't want to have to explain to Aunt Petunia that Dudley was eaten by a prehistoric super-snake a hundred years before he was born – and I _really_ don't want to have to explain to the Americans of 1856 how their Vice-President got promoted."

"Not the Vice-President," Dumbledore corrected him. "That office has been vacant for several years now. If the Titanoboa should devour Franklin Pierce, the U.S. presidency would devolve upon the president pro tempore of the Senate – a Mr Bright, I believe it is at the moment.

"But your essential point," he added, "which I take to be that we must intervene, is, I concede, quite unassailable. Wand out, Harry; this may prove a ticklish business."

* * *

 _"He noticed the little tip of an ear poke through pitch black hair, pointed instead of rounded the way Tom's were, and he thought suddenly that this must was one of the fabled little folk."_ –This is your Heichou speaking, "Lust (Tastes a Little Like Madness)"

"Something wrong, Tom?" said Acte with a sigh.

"The must!" Tom babbled, pointing to the floor where his glass of fresh grape juice lay spilled and shattered. "It wasn't really must – it was a fairy in disguise! When I held it up to the light, I saw it – in the glass – pointed ear – black hair…"

Acte raised an eyebrow, and glanced up past the Slytherin table to the spot, right across from Tom's seat, where Emily Montgomery sat – Emily, the raven-haired Hufflepuff first year whose oddly shaped ears had been a persistent subject of comment ever since she'd entered the castle. _Typical Tom,_ she thought. _Honestly, how do I get stuck with all the dotty ones for beaux?_

"Well, then," she said aloud, "in the future, maybe you'd better stick to pumpkin juice like the rest of us…"


	26. Mane, Essentially, Maxime, Wring

_"[S]he was not wearing any clothing[;] she was hugging her knees and her face was obscured by a Maine of hair."_ –Darkhermionetwist, "The Twisted Life of Hermione Granger"

"Um… Hermione?" said Parvati slowly.

Hermione craned her neck, and smiled at her Housemate. "Oh, hello, Parvati," she said. "Don't mind me, I'm just performing my evening meditations. Got to strengthen that magical core, you know."

"Uh-huh," said Parvati. "And of course you have to do that sitting on the floor of the dormitory, stark naked, with your knees clutched against your chin and supporting a… what _is_ this, anyway?" she said, picking up the object that was resting on Hermione's kneecaps. "A model ship made of cat's hair?"

"It's the _Maine_ ," said Hermione. "You know, the famous American warship that blew up in Havana Harbour and started the Spanish-American War. I made it last weekend, when Crookshanks was shedding all over the place… what?" she added defensively, as Parvati gave her a disbelieving look. "I'm entitled to do something with my spare time besides Ron and Harry's homework, aren't I?"

Parvati shook her head. If this was what it took to be top of every class, she decided, she was all too grateful for her solid A average.

* * *

 _"Ginny had a problem[,] and normally she wouldn't consult Ron of all people if that was the case[,] but seeing as they were accentually in the same boat[,] so to speak[,] she had to try."_ –Lil Lost Lady, "Happy Birthday Dad!"

"So, Ron," she said with a deep breath. "You had to do Anapestic Incantations in your N.E.W.T. year, right?"

"Sure," her brother replied.

"Well, how did you make your name fit?"

Ron blinked. "Pardon?"

"Your name," said Ginny. "An Incantation has to contain the full Christian name and surname of the incantator, right? But my name can't possibly be made anapestic, since there's only one unaccented syllable between the 'ev' and the 'Weas'. I can't figure out how to get around that, so I thought, since you were in the same accentual boat…"

"But I wasn't," said Ron.

Ginny stared at him. "Yes, you were. 'RON-ald WEAS-ley': there's only one unaccented syllable between the two accents there, just like with me."

"But my first accented syllable is the first syllable in my name," said Ron. "So I just bunged an accented word in front of it, to drown it out – 'I', I think it was; ' _I_ , Ronald _Weas_ ley' – and there I was. I don't know what I'd have done if my name had been Ginevra – not that it could have been, anyway, but you know what I mean."

"Oh." Ginny frowned down at her parchment. "Well, dang."

* * *

 _"Harry pulled Fleur up and[,] shocking everyone except for Madame Maxim and the other Beauxbatons teachers, pulled her in for a searing kiss."_ –HarryGinnyTonks, "Defender of Beauxbatons"

"Do you mean, Jane," Pomona Sprout exclaimed, "that you – you and your colleagues – you _knew_ about Miss Delacour and Mr Potter? But… I don't see… there was no… how _could_ you know?"

Jane Budden Maxim smiled quietly. "I've been doing this for quite some time, Pomona," she said.

This, of course, was an understatement to end all understatements. She had been teaching _les études moldus_ at Beauxbatons for over a hundred years – ever since she and Hiram had separated, and the Flamels had taken her in and pulled some strings on her behalf. But there was no need for her to boast of her age, much less to reveal herself as the ill-treated widow of the inventor of the Maxim gun, was there? Far better to just leave it at "quite some time".

* * *

 _"I catch you in here again and I'll ring your neck, you little rodent."_ –MegaKitty, "Death Eaters Revenge"

Kreacher's eyes widened in horror, and his hand stole to the bell embedded in his throat. "Mistress would not dare," he croaked. "Kreacher's neck is the one magic that even the Dark Lord feared; if it were rung, the evils that would be summoned would swallow both Kreacher and Mistress into endless vortices of chaotic terror."

"Right you are, Kreach," said Lucy. "And you wouldn't risk something like that just for the sake of nosing around my laboratory, would you?"

Kreacher hesitated. "Well… no," he said. "No, Kreacher… Kreacher wouldn't."

"Good." Lucy pointed. "Out. Now."


	27. Parents, Physique, Face, Llama

_"'Sir, I was wondering if you knew my parent's well,' Harry asked in one breath before he lost his nerves."_ –Johnny Farrar, "The Potter Politics"

Slughorn stroked his moustache thoughtfully. "Which parent?" he enquired. "Not Lily, was it?"

"No, sir, my dad," said Harry, taking a deep breath; now that his attack of nerves had worn off, he found himself more prepared to go into details. "Apparently there was a Whispering Well on the old Potter land; my godfather mentioned it in his will, and the Headmaster thinks I should go have a conversation with it once I become of age this summer. But it doesn't seem right for me to just go demanding counsel from an ancient magic without being properly introduced – so I thought, if you happened to…"

"'Myes," said Slughorn. "Well, Harry m'boy, I'm afraid I must reply in the negative; I did know your grandfather slightly, but not so as to be made acquainted with the secrets of his estate. You might ask Gudrun, though; I believe there was an old connection between the Potters and the Sinistras."

* * *

 _"In all fairness, he had a very handsome face and a very athletic physic."_ –Vorlon666, "Ascension of the Scorpion Sorcerer"

Xoran Zabini inched open the lid of his medicine case, his hand looming over the slowly widening crack. With luck, this time he would be able to catch the tablet before it got loose…

But he didn't, of course. With the agility for which Grayson's Anti-Lupus Potion was famous, the little yellow pill sprang from the other end of the case, launched itself into the air, and performed thirteen somersaults and a double full twist before Xoran caught up with it and wrestled it to the ground.

As he dragged the struggling tablet over to the sink and fixed himself a glass of water with his free hand, he heard his brother Blaise chuckle behind him. "Usual morning routine, Xor?"

"As ever," said Xoran, popping the pill and washing it down in one practised motion. "I do wish they didn't make these things quite so athletic; even Professor Lupin didn't have this much trouble taking his physic."

Blaise shrugged. "Well, at least you've still got your looks…"

* * *

 _"A sneer was planted firmly on his dace, but Rodolphus didn't seem to be impressed."_ –Sarah McLearing, "A Powerfull Weapon"

"Here, see for yourself," said Snape, and stuck his wand into the aquarium. " _Labiacrispus!_ "

A red light surged through the water, and struck the silvery, carp-like fish square on the jaw. Immediately, its face began to contort itself out of the vacant expression usual to fish, and, within a matter of seconds, it was sporting a quite unmistakable sneer.

"You see?" Snape demanded, snatching his wand back out of the aquarium fiercely (and splattering water over himself and his companion in the process). "A sneer! On a dace! Do you know how much magical prowess it takes to make a dace sneer? And all Lestrange did was grunt like an ox and wander back over to the refreshments table!"

Mulciber shrugged. "Don't take it too hard, Snape," he said. "We all know Dolph's an idiot." He chuckled. "I'll never forget: when he tried to please the Dark Lord by making him robes that read 'The Most Powerful Wizard Ever', he spelled 'powerful' with two L's. Earned him a nasty Cruciatus, that did."

* * *

 _"Again sighing, knowing all the work she was loaded with, [she] took out her wand and amused herself by transfiguring the grass that was currently in the mouth of an unsuspecting lama, into a pile of daisies."_ –Queen of Basil, "Foreign Prophecy"

Hermione stepped out into the lamasery courtyard, where the young South American witch lay toying idly with her wand. "Leia?" she said. "What are you doing out here?"

Leia shrugged. "Oh, you know," she said. "Just… stuff."

Hermione glanced at the saffron-robed figure who sat nearby, munching cheerfully on a mouthful of daisies, and rolled her eyes. "Look, Leia," she said. "Your aunt told me about your attention issues; I know that, when you're forced to sit still too long, eventually something snaps inside you and you have to go out and cast random spells on things for a while. And I respect that, and if you need a Ping-Pong table or something set up in the library, I'd be happy to arrange that. But those ancient scrolls do have to be translated and in the Headmaster's hands by Friday, and you're the only person alive with enough ifreet blood to read them; we really don't need you getting kicked out of Yama-la for Confunding the lamas into thinking they're sheep."

Leia sighed. "Yeah, I know, Hermione," she said. "You're entirely right, and I shouldn't be wasting time playing truant this way. I'll go back inside right now." Then she paused, and glanced speculatively toward the horizon. "You know, I bet I could knock the High Lama's hat off with a Cruciatus Curse right now, and he wouldn't even feel… okay, okay. I'm going, I'm going."


	28. Arch, Shack, Drabble, Comma

_"She touched the ark and the next thing she knew she was falling into the ark, the blackness fell over her…"_ –TheSilentMaid, "The Ultimate Weapon"

"Well, looks like we've lost another one."

"Yup."

"You'd think these junior Unspeakables would know better. Didn't what happened to Uzzah teach them anything?"

"Get real, boss. These are good postmodern European kids; what do they want to be reading the Bible for?"

"Mm… point taken. All right, go see if you can pull her out by her hair without knocking the Ark off the pedestal – and make sure to gather up the manna if it got spilled again."

* * *

 _"At least he hadn't had the nightmares of the Shrieking Shake lately."_ –HermioneHotchner1, "The Dark Side of the Moon"

"Rough night, Sev?" said Lily sympathetically, as her friend slipped, bleary-eyed, into the chair beside her.

Severus groaned wearily. "I dreamed I was standing before an immense chocolate sundae," he said, "and pouring out all the deepest things in my heart – my most eloquent questions, my most passionate appeals – my last hope of finding pity or sympathy in Nature. And then I saw the mountain of ice cream start to roll and quiver, and knew that the thing was shaking with a lonely laughter – and the laughter was at me."

Lily wrinkled her nose. "Ugh," she said. "That's even worse than last Monday, when you were defending the citadel of Lomar against squat, hellish Eskimo Pies. Potter's _Gelatosomnium_ spell really did a number on you, didn't it?"

Severus shrugged philosophically. "Well, it could be worse," he said. "At least I haven't seen the Shrieking Shake again since that first night."

Lily shuddered. "Point taken."

* * *

 _"A drab inspired by the following quote: 'Love can sometimes be magic. But magic can sometimes… just be an illusion.'"_ –HPFangirl71, summary to "The Weapon of Love"

"I don't know," said the young prostitute, staring up at the framed Javan quote above her bed. "It just speaks to me, somehow. It's like – magic… great power, whatever… it might be all in our minds, after all. Not so much that it really is undefeatable, but just that it's made us forget that we can and should defeat it. And if so, then maybe there's someone out there who loves us enough to overcome that illusion – to be the greater magic that defeats the one binding us. You see?"

Her brothel-mate snorted cynically. "Quite the philosopher, aren't you, honey?" she said. "Sounds like somebody wasted a good education on a common drab."

Said drab smiled sadly, and reached up to toy with a lock of her brown, bushy hair. "Yes, I've often imagined that I must have been to a good school at some point," she said. "And, crazy as it sounds, Lavender, I sometimes think you were there, too."

* * *

 _"Most of [the mistakes] were a single letter, a lower case that should be a capital, or a capital, that should be a lower case, a misplaced coma or a period."_ –Icarus1475, author's note to "Harry Potter and the New Ability"

"All right, you two!" Clotho snapped at her sisters, thrusting a withered finger at the section of their weaving corresponding to late-20th-Century wizarding Britain. "How – _how_ – did you let this happen? Did I not leave a perfectly plain pattern for you when I went to go refresh our supply of Hvergelmir water?"

The other two Fates glanced at each other sheepishly, and shifted their feet. "Well, yes," said Lachesis, "but that charming boy Dionysus dropped in just after you left, and we may have, well… oh, Clothie, don't look at me that way! They were just little mistakes, you know…"

"Oh, certainly," Clotho hissed. "Narcissa Malfoy getting one extra letter from her sister; Hermione Granger having her period on the wrong day in December 1997; the coma that Meridia Colubra was supposed to fall into in 1987 somehow getting misplaced. All tiny, trivial details, not worth the flicker of a Moira's eyebrow – and yet, somehow, they manage to lead to Mr. Thomas M. Riddle taking over the whole of Europe and laying the groundwork for humanity's premature extinction. There's a lesson in that, don't you think?"

Her sisters whimpered with compunction, and Clotho sighed and snapped her fingers. "Right," she said. "Reverse the sheds, Atropos, and let's get cracking. I know Aristotle says that even we can't make undone the things that have been done, but I'm just ticked enough to defy that; if it makes all reality go up in a puff of logic, I'll blame you two."


	29. On Whom This Name Was Bestowed, Ear, Tow

**Author's note:** Only three Minuets this time, I'm afraid; given the length of the first one's title, trying to squeeze four in would require two of their titles to consist of a single orthographic symbol – and, with "I" already taken, the odds of that being possible in the foreseeable future seemed bleak. I'll put five in the next chapter, to make up for it.

* * *

 _"Even the [M]uggles Homer and Shakespeare knew of what great importance women who bestowed this name would be of._ Hermione. _"_ –in transit, "Friendly Fire"

"'Small blame is it that Trojans and well-greaved Achaeans should for such a woman long time suffer hardships; marvellously like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon' … 'the mortal Venus, the heart-blood of beauty, love's invisible soul'…" The sonorous passages rolled triumphantly off Peter Winslow's tongue as he settled back in his armchair with a satisfied sigh. One could argue with Homer alone, and one could argue with Shakespeare alone, but when the two of them concurred on something, one could only submit. That Helen of Troy was a woman of unique and glorious moment could be regarded as proven; that his own daughter, now that he had persuaded her to bestow upon her only child the same name as Helen had bestowed upon hers, would prove to play an equally glorious and momentous role, followed as an inevitable consequence.

He knew, of course, that not everyone shared this latter view of his. His own wife, for some misbegotten reason, had flatly rejected the idea that a woman's destiny was shaped by the name she gave her eldest child, and had insisted on naming their own daughter Anne – whereupon, of course, he had been forced to quietly poison her, lest she convert him to a subversive ideology that would eventually bring about his downfall, as Anne Hyde Stuart had done to her own husband. (It was possible, of course, that Destiny would have referred the name Anne to the saint rather than to the queen – but, as nothing seemed to be known about the mother of St. Anne, there was no guarantee that that would have been any better. Anyway, he didn't believe in taking chances with such things.)

Now, though, all was well. Little Hermione Granger was formally and irrevocably christened, and her mother was set on the path that would cause her name to ring down the ages. To be sure, it was hard on young Edward to be stuck with the role of Menelaus – but, after all, one couldn't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

* * *

 _"Sirius woke to James shouting in his are, and quickly pushed the boy off the edge of his bed."_ –MopCat, "Forgotten Wishes"

"Attention, House of Black!" James announced. "I, James Potter, being in possession of the second guest bedroom of No. 12, Grimmauld Place, unilaterally declare the full 100 square metres of Sirius Black's bedroom to be annexed thereto. At one stroke, I have doubled my personal territory, and set myself upon a program of conquest that cannot but lead to my absolute suzerainty over the whole of London, and thence of the world. If any of my hosts wish to preemptively yield to my manifest destiny, I will meet them in the breakfast nook at eight o'clock to discuss terms of… awwk!"

As he tumbled to the floor in a flailing heap of arms, legs, and blankets, Sirius hoisted himself up on his elbow and gazed down at him with amused if still-bleary eyes. "Okay, Prongs, two new rules," he said. "First, no imperial expansionism before sun-up. Second, we Blacks were experts in the land-seizing business centuries before anybody'd heard of the Potters, so, unless you _want_ to be reduced to cringing serfdom, you lay off my are."

* * *

 _"'Shut up[,] James, he's still talking,' a round toe-headed boy said quietly, trying to listen…"_ –thetingirl, "Courting"

To almost anyone else, James would have retorted that one could hear Sirius talk any time, and a report on the Herbological composition of Amortentia was hardly the most fascinating thing he'd ever said – certainly not more interesting than James's impression of Professor Schwarz reading aloud from the _Mahabharata_. But he checked himself; there was something about this particular classmate that always made him wary of offering provocation. After all, when a kid had an enormous big toe where his head ought to be, there had to be something macabre about his background and life story; who knew what he might be capable of if sufficiently irked?

"Yeah, all right," he murmured. "Sorry, Velez."


	30. Fainted, Galleons, Three, Woman, Through

_"We were discussing certain things about the Potter family that have been kept secret and he feinted."_ –Icarus1475, "Harry Potter and the New Ability"

"So, Potter," Lily Evans whispered, flying up alongside Harry as their respective teammates wrestled for the Quaffle, "is it true what they say about your mother being a wizard in drag?"

"What?" Harry blurted out. (His mind had been on finding the Snitch, and he'd forgotten for a moment that Lily thought he was James – which, of course, had made her question seem peculiarly macabre.)

"Oh, don't think I'm passing judgment," said Lily. "Some of the finest people I know were born by the Rites of Mapreg." She shot a glance at Lucius Malfoy, down in the stands, and sighed. "Such a waste. But I can see why _you'd_ be shy about admitting it, of course; after all, the last thing you need is to seem more of a slug than you already do."

It was just the standard demoralising raillery of a Slytherin Seeker to a rival, but to hear it from his own mother's lips triggered something in Harry. He was suddenly overcome with loathing for this whole filthy parallel universe that Voldemort had trapped him in, and he spontaneously determined, in some small way, to get back at it.

He glanced ostentatiously downward, and then abruptly kicked at his broom and started swooping toward the ground. The bluff worked; Lily lowered her own broom's handle and sped after him, and he led her on and on until, barely a foot from the ground, he jerked himself upward again and rose back into the air.

A muffled crash and a high-pitched scream told him that his rival had been unable to pull out of her dive in time. He smiled sourly to himself. "Sorry, Mum," he murmured, "but it's not _my_ fault if you don't know a Wronski Feint when you see one."

* * *

 _"Luna then approached me with a suitcase. 'Here is the thirty thousand gallons as promised[,]' stated Luna."_ –Evil Computer, "The Porno"

I took the suitcase, and hefted it experimentally. "Bottomless Pit Charm?" I said.

"Naturally," said Luna. "You'll want to be careful when you open it, though; glass jugs don't stack very well in infinite space, and some of them might come out wrong end up."

"Got it," I said. "Thanks for warning me."

Luna nodded, and sighed. "You know, Hermione, I do hope that Ginny has a good time tonight," she said. "After all the work we've put into her bachelorette party, it would be a shame if it finally flopped."

"Flopped?" I repeated. "Luna, don't be silly. The royal suite at the Hotel Sia, the Weird Sisters performing, all her old friends from school, and thirty thousand gallons of firewhiskey: what's there to flop about that?"

You talk about famous last words…

* * *

 _"Tree, five, seven, continue this sequence!"_ –o. , "MAGI"

"What did you get on question nine?" Teddy Lupin asked Delilah Pillow as the two of them exited the Ancient Runes classroom.

"Talking, Atlantis, handy," Delilah responded briskly.

Teddy arched a neon-green eyebrow. "Dare I ask how?"

Delilah's eyes gleamed. "Well, I knew the sequence had something to do with the translations of the American Hot 100 records that we were given to search," she said, "so I performed a runecall on the three words to see how many times each one appeared in the various song titles. There were no titles that began with the word _tree_ , but plenty that ended with it, so I figured it must be a sequence either of last words or of alternating last and first words. That's logical, isn't it?"

Teddy shrugged. "I suppose so."

"So I looked for a sequence of three songs," Delilah continued, "at regular intervals from each other in terms of both their week and their chart position, that went '(something) Tree', either 'Five (something)' or '(something) Five', and '(something) Seven' – and, of course, that left room to be continued at least one more step. And out of all the hundreds of possible combinations, there was only one that worked exactly: K. T. Tunstall's 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree', #50 for the week of 14 October 2006; Brownstone's 'Five Miles to Empty', #41 for the week of 14 June 1997; and Squeeze's '853-5937', #32 for the week of 13 February 1988.* So I just kept going from there – back 487 weeks and up 9 positions, as many times as I could. #23 for the week of 14 October 1978 was 'Talking in Your Sleep', by Crystal Gayle; #14 for the week of 14 June 1969 was 'Atlantis', by Donovan; and #5 for the week of 13 February 1960 was 'Handy Man', by Jimmy Jones. So that's the sequence: tree, five, seven, talking, Atlantis, handy." And she smiled up at Teddy, glowing with pure intellectual satisfaction.

Teddy stared at her for a long moment, and then heaved a mighty sigh. "Remind me again why I decided to take Study of Ancient Runes?" he said.

"Schoolboy crush on Professor Lime," Delilah replied promptly.

"Oh, right."

* * *

 _"They kissed and it was no longer Hermione [G]ranger the girl who was standing there[;] instead it was Hermione [W]easley, the married women."_ –alivevalkyrie, "Goodbye"

"Yi!" Ron yelped, jumping backward. "How… what…"

The four future versions of his girlfriend laughed in unison. "That's what happens when you kiss a girl with Aging Potion on your breath, Ron," said the grey-haired one on the far right. "Don't worry, it'll wear off in a minute or so. I should know; this is my fifth time experiencing this, after all."

"While we're here, though," said a distinctly pregnant Hermione who looked to be about 25, "we'd just like to let you know: When you go into the Ministry, be sure to keep on your toes. We can't go into details, but not everything about Voldemort's infiltration program is what it seems."

"Too true," said the middle-aged Hermione next to her. "You'll be tested in ways you haven't even imagined, darling. Don't take anything for granted, don't believe your eyes, and, whatever you do, don't let go of your wand."

"That's right," said the youngest of the four Hermiones. "And one more thing: don't be afraid. Cautious, yes, but not afraid or distressed; you have what it takes to make it through, and we're sure you will." She winked at him. "After all, if you didn't, we couldn't be here, could we?"

Before Ron could reply, a brilliant light surrounded his fourfold future wife; the next moment, the Hermione he knew was standing before him alone, rubbing her forehead dazedly. "Wow," she murmured. "Libatius Borage never mentioned _that_ side-effect."

* * *

 _"'You may sit[,] my dear[,]' he said after a few moments of thumbing threw her records."_ –SiriusUntiltheVeryEnd, "You Think You Know Me? You Have No Idea!"

"What is this?" Voldemort demanded of the enchanted LPs. "Why have you returned without your mistress? Did you not understand that I commanded you to bring her to me?"

The leader of the band – a normally cocky and self-assured copy of the Beatles' White Album – shuffled awkwardly in its slipcover. "We… we lost her, My Lord," it said. "We followed her as far as the Old Kent Road, but then she and Dumbledore Disapparated, and we don't know where they…"

"Don't know where?" Voldemort repeated. " _Don't know where?_ Miserable creature, do you not realise that I gave you the power to trace Disapparation spells at the same time as I brought you to life? And now you come to me with _don't know where_?"

"Well, we didn't know he was going to Disapparate," Whitey tried to explain. "He just sat there, thumbing for a hitch, so we assumed he didn't have his wand with him. So we took a few moments out to check ourselves for scratches…"

"Sœmundur's shadow!" Voldemort exploded. "You were thrown by a dodge _that_ transparent? A first-year Hufflepuff could have…" He stopped abruptly, quivered silently with rage for a few seconds, and then pointed sharply to the door. "Out!" he snapped. "All of you! Get out of my sight, and be thankful that I don't shatter you where you stand!"

Elizabeth Black's record collection obligingly scurried for the door, their Lord's parting shot echoing behind them as they left. "I always said that Muggle rock and roll rotted the brain!"

* * *

*As of 5 December 2015, this appears to have been entirely true. Special thanks to Dane Batten for providing me with the means to determine it.


	31. Revealed, Ssssnakessss, Copulation, Dogs

_"Well now, about the other things you reveiled, what is this about a troll, and a Basilisk?"_ –Icarus1495, "Harry Potter and the New Ability"

"Oh, that," said Harry. "That was a couple weeks ago. For some reason, Bellatrix Lestrange thought it would be a terrific lark to remove the Veils of Slumber from two of the DRCMC's most dangerous captive specimens; they caused quite a bit of trouble, I hear, before I could get over to the Ministry and reveil them."

Madam Bones shook her head in wonder. "Amazing," she said. "Only sixteen years old, and already the Ministry's go-to wizard for subduing rampaging monsters. You certainly can pick the good ones, can't you, Susan?"

Her niece beamed. "I try," she said.

* * *

 _"I am the king, or in thissss casssse the queen, of all ssssnackssss, as well as one of the most dangerous creaturessss in existence."_ –AlecNight, "Mother Basilisk"

"Really?" said Tom Riddle speculatively.

 _"Yessss,"_ came the spasmodically hissing voice from the small, wheaten wafer before him. _"Those who have tassssted Cockatriscuits agree that our flavour issss unrivaled by that of any other ssssnack food – those, at least, who ssssurvive to render a judgment. For we put up a great resisssstance to being consumed; mosssst of the foul gluttons who have attempted it have had their gulletssss torn open from within – and sssserve them right."_

"I see," said Tom. "Well, then, how would you like to mosey with me over to Ravenclaw Tower? There's a foul glutton there who had the nerve to outshine me in History of Magic last week; I think he needs to be taught a good lesson, don't you?"

* * *

 _"He shrugged back and turned his golden gaze back to his hand that swam amongst the fish. 'There is nothing remotely remarkable about them and yet they continue to live their unremarkable lives. Nothing but consumption, fornication, defecation, and rest…'"_ –darkmorsmordreheart, "My Heart of Hearts"

"The human knows," the female goldfish whispered to her paramour.

"Knows?" he returned.

"About us," she said, with a little moan. "That an illicit liaison consumes our days – that we spend all our waking moments seeking the pleasures of carnal union, when we haven't enough courage or piety to pledge a union of our lives. That, apart from this dissolution, our lives are a mere round of eating, sleeping, and eliminating. He _knows_ , I tell you!"

"Well, and what of it?" said the male, with a brusque wave of his fin. "Does he think his people are any better? I've seen the way the humans carry on in this park, when they think no-one sees. Such things are a fact of life these days; nobody so much as remarks on them anymore."

"And what is everyone's sin is no-one's sin?" the female demanded. "Is that what you're going to say, Karl? That we needn't strive for a perfection that our neighbours have abandoned?" She shook her head. "I can't live that way anymore. I won't be reduced to the level of Gellert Grindelwald's cynical expectations; I will live chastely, or not at all. If it makes me remarkable in the eyes of those for whom fornication has become a fact of life, then so be it." And she lashed her tail and swam away without another word.

Her spurned partner in sin stared after her for a moment, then shook his head and grunted softly. "Women…"

* * *

 _"'It's chicken,' he said softly. 'Dog's like chicken, right?'"_ –ksomm814, "Midnight Guardian"

The Cheyenne wizard gave him a long, silent look, and a realisation stole over Harry that, when you promise to fête someone in the traditional style of his ancestors, the proper thing is to do this, and not to flinch from the main course because it reminds you of your late godfather's Animagus form.

"Okay, fine," he muttered, taking back the platter of drumsticks and thighs. "I'll just freeze all this, then Apparate out to the local pound and find some nice fat terriers for us. Go ahead and help yourself to the plum-and-pemmican roll-ups while I'm gone; those are okay, at least, right?"


	32. Long Enough Ago, Laugh, Folk, Dodge

_"'But 1784 isn't really long enough to…' 'Shut up[,] Evie!'"_ –DayDreamerGirl4life, summary to "First Day"

"No, but listen," Evie insisted. "If the Headmaster wants us to alter French society enough to prevent the Revolution, he has to give us more than just one year. By 1784, the aristocracy was so far gone in decadence, you could spend a lifetime trying to reform it without…"

"What part of 'shut up' didn't you understand, Evie?" said Joseph. "Of course, the Headmaster knows all that; he doesn't expect that things will be perfect when we're recalled to the present. All we're supposed to do is provide the initial impetus – to inspire certain key people, by our words and examples, to alleviate things enough that Robespierre and Danton don't feel the need to start knocking down prisons in five years."

"Well…" Evie floundered for words. "That's all very well, but it doesn't… I mean, you can't just…"

"Oh, ignore her, Joseph," said Lucy, swishing into the room in her 1780s-French-aristocrat gown. "She's just worried that she won't be able to carry off the necklines of the period as well as some of the rest of us."

Joseph glanced up at his girlfriend, and smirked. "Well, I can't blame her for that…"

* * *

 _"[S]he stopped[,] holding her breath[,] as she noticed a bright flash of green light, and the evil Lough of, he who must not be named."_ –Novum Arkilum, "Contritum"

"James?" she said hoarsely.

James glanced up from the map of the Scottish Highlands he was examining. "Yes?"

Lily pointed to the gap in the trees through which the faint gleam of the fell lake had caught her eye. "Is that what I think it is?"

As James's gaze followed her pointing finger, a second green flash lit up the woods, and the Potters heard a cold tenor voice cackling in delight. _"Behold, my servants!"_ it cried. _"Behold what was once a mere wriggling lamprey, now lighting up the sky as the blood-lust throbs through its fiery scales! Such is the power of your master; behold, and tremble!"_

James gulped. "I didn't realise we'd come _this_ far out of our way."

"I think we'd better start heading north again," said Lily.

James nodded, and the two of them turned and strode briskly in the direction of Hogwarts, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the accursed waters of Lough Voldemort.

* * *

 _"Distantly a folklorist tune could be heard faintly through the trees."_ –Swooping Evil, "Weeping Cherry Tree"

" _So many the scholars whose praise may be sung,  
_ _As Jacqueline Simpson, or Ruth Lyndell Tongue,  
_ _Or Arnold van Gennep the proud Savoyard –  
_ _But who'd be a tale told by Beedle the Bard?_ "

The tremulous soprano echoed through the trees, and Albus Potter, as though drawn by a magnet, tiptoed through the leaf litter toward its source. Why anyone should be wandering the Forbidden Forest under a midsummer full moon, singing a mournful tune about Muggle folklorists, was more than he could imagine – and his Marauder blood wouldn't let him leave such a mystery unresolved.

" _James Frazer's attentions are nothing to fear;  
Well might Snorri Sturlason's conscience be clear –  
But oh, my good masters, 'tis bitterly hard  
_ _To be thus recorded by Beedle the Bard!_ "

The voice seemed to come from a nearby clearing; Albus approached it, and beheld a midnight-black girl in antique robes, sitting on a fallen log. In the moonlight, he could make out every detail of her face, and the beauty and sorrow in it came nigh to breaking his heart; he wanted to call out to her, to offer her some word of consolation, only he couldn't bring himself to interrupt her song.

" _Pass Zora Neale Hurston and Joel Chandler Harris,  
Whose ghosts and whose beasts they were loath to embarrass;  
Condemn not George Dasent – no fault lies in him –  
And who need admonish the good Brothers Grimm?  
But, stranger, if any heart beats in your breast  
For those whom the Parcae have sorely oppressed,  
_ _Then pity a periapt poor and ill-starred  
_ _Whose tale was collated by…_ "

A branch snapped under Albus's feet, and the girl abruptly broke off and turned with a start. As she caught sight of his face, a brief flash of horror passed over her countenance; then, then next moment, it was replaced by a look of bewilderment, as though she were unsure what precisely she was seeing.

"Sorry," said Albus hastily. "I didn't mean to intrude; I just heard you through the trees, and it was so pretty and unusual, I had to check it out." Then, remembering the proprieties his mother had trained him in, he added, "I'm Albus Potter, by the way."

The girl's eyes widened in understanding. "Oh, I see," she said. "Well, hello, Albus Potter. I'm…" She paused for a moment, as though uncertain how to continue. "Anastasia," she said at length, seeming to come to a decision. "My name is Anastasia Stone."

* * *

 _"So, a genius like Dumbledore couldn't possibly be fooled by a doge as pathetically dim[-]witted as an aging potion."_ –Unicorn20023, "Sometimes, Happy Memories Hurt the Most"

"That's all _you_ know about it, Signorina Granger," said the revenant of Vitale Michiel II, glaring down at her from the top of the Astronomy Tower. "True, my reign over the Republic of Venice may have been marked by follies and ineptitudes – I may have been short-sighted enough to open the Pandora's box of national debt, and simple enough to let the Greek emperor destroy my fleet by mere inaction – but that, my dear, was long ago and far away. Now that the Dark Lord has summoned me out of the grave, my intellect has the scope, power, and dispassion of an unholy angel; no mere English schoolmaster can possibly fail to fall victim to the inhuman cunning at my… awwk!"

Hermione cast a hasty Shield Charm to protect herself from the falling body of the suddenly Petrified doge; the 800-year-old corpse crumbled upon impact with the magical barrier, and little pieces of medieval Venetian ruler sprinkled down harmlessly upon the grass around her. Then, hearing a rustle of robes behind her, she turned to see the Headmaster striding across the lawn toward her.

"My sincere thanks for your loyalty just now, Miss Granger," he said, smiling broadly. "It does an old man good to know that, vague and doddering though he may be growing, his students still trust him not to credit a backwards-written letter reading, 'My Lord, if Dumbledore goes into the Forbidden Forest at noon, all our secret plans will be ruined.'

"One question, though, if I may," he added. "Just where did a witch of your tender years pick up the fine old phrase 'as dim-witted as an Aging Potion'?"

Hermione grinned. "Something Professor McGonagall said about Ludo Bagman."

"Ah."


	33. Catatonic, Meadowes, Discretion, Corpse

_"I could curse you into a cationic state without so much as blinking, you inebriated nutcase!"_ –Twisted Biscuit, "Just a Random Tuesday…"

As Gudrun Sinistra entered the staff room, she was intrigued to observe a life-size effigy of Sibyll Trelawney, formed from some waxy, yellow substance that she couldn't identify, standing next to Severus Snape's favourite chair, apparently attempting to steal a kiss from its occupant. "Well, now," she inquired, "what's the occasion for this?"

"No occasion," said Snape. "Sibyll was annoying me with her drunken attentions, so I turned her into a cationic compound. Behentrimonium chloride, I think, but don't quote me on that."

"Ah." Sinistra nodded sympathetically. "Yes, I think all of us would understand that impulse. But why cationic, particularly?"

"Well, you know how I feel about anionic compounds," said Snape. "Why do you think I haven't shampooed in fifteen years?"

* * *

 _"Without Alice, there could have been no Dorcas Meadows."_ –Third Time Charm, "All for Love"

As the Longbottoms were assessing their finances for the coming month, one of their mistily luminous tenants came up to them and clasped Frank's hand. "Oh, Master Longbottom," he said, evidently near tears, "how can I thank you enough for this bucolic refuge from the mortal world's woes? You are a great man, truly."

Frank smiled. "My pleasure, Hiram," he said. "You do me too much credit, though. I'm glad to have done what I could, but, if you want to see real greatness, you should look at Alice here."

Alice blushed. "Oh, Frank, don't be silly," she said. "This whole project was your idea, and you know it. When Morfin Gaunt shattered the Resurrection Stone and rent the barrier between life and death, _I_ would never have thought to create a magical rest home for all the souls thus returned from the grave – and, even if I had, I wouldn't have had the magical skill to pull it off."

"That may be," said Frank, "but, without your brains and practicality, I'm sure this place could never have gotten off the ground. Even its name had to be your idea; I wouldn't have known my Bible well enough to find one so fitting."

"Well, be it so," said Hiram. "But, whoever's was the inspiration, the result has blessed me and mine past measure, and eternity will be too brief a span for us to duly commend the peace we have found here."

"I'm glad, Hiram," said Frank softly. "Peace is what we strive for, here at Dorcas Meadows."

* * *

 _"The Main were the wizards and witches closest to Lord Voldemort, a following protected by indiscretion."_ –BooJelly, "Pansy Parkinson and the Death Eaters"

"Are those our colleagues, up on that balcony?" said Snape, gesturing to a dinner party of well-dressed wizards and witches whose careless chatter of Unforgivable Curses and soul-shattering crimes could be heard clearly from where he and Lucius Malfoy stood on the street below.

"Those are the Main," said Malfoy with a curt nod. "The Dark Lord believes that indiscretion is the best way of being discreet; he says that the Order would hunt us out if we hid in darkness, but that, if you plot the overthrow of wizarding civilisation openly and in broad daylight, nobody will ever believe you mean it. And thus we flaunt our schemes before the public – as you see – and the public says that we are a lot of jolly ladies and gentlemen who play at being Dark wizards."

Snape nodded thoughtfully. "It seems a very clever idea," he said.

Malfoy turned sharply and glared at him, as though he had uttered the most colossal impudence. "Clever!" he repeated witheringly. "When you've seen the Dark Lord for a split second, you'll leave off calling him _clever_!"

Then he controlled himself, and managed a crooked half-smile. "But never mind. Just go up there and make yourself acquainted with the others; I'll be along presently. Tell the witch at the desk that you're Thursday; she'll know what to do."

* * *

 _"That which had been a corps began to, once again, slowly reacquaint itself with the conscious movement of life."_ –UnLike Us, "Myrtle's Strange Gift"

"What d'you reckon?" said one long-dead Rebel to another, as the thousands of gray-clad men who had made up the I Army Corps of Northern Virginia mulled about the deserted English village, growing accustomed once again to the sensation of walking and breathing. "Last Trump, voodoo magic, or something else again?"

As his comrade confessed his ignorance, a cold, high-pitched voice echoed through the village, and all the Confederates turned to see a dark-robed, inhuman figure standing at the centre of the town square. "Greetings, my servants," he said. "I am Lord Voldemort, mightiest of wizards, and I have called you forth from the grave that you might be privileged to help me cleanse the Earth of Mudblood vermin. For a great pollution threatens the pure wizarding blood; those of non-magical stock claim equality with our oldest houses, and must be taught their rightful place."

"Very good, sir," said a new voice, and General Longstreet strode forward and placed himself before the wizard Lord. "But what has that to do with us? We are no wizards; only a few loyal sons of Virginia who sought to preserve their country from Northern aggression."

Voldemort laughed. "Come now, General," he said. "It is well known that your side's object in fighting the American Civil War was solely to preserve the inequality of the races. You needn't keep up the flimsy pretence of concern for your cultural heritage; my conscience needs no such palliation to…"

He broke off in sudden alarm as the General whipped his sword from its sheath and thrust its tip toward his throat. "Sir," said Longstreet, his voice tight with fury, "perhaps you know as little of the men of the South as you seem to, and are unaware of how they receive insults such as yours. In consideration of your ignorance, I give you one minute to retract your remarks; if you will not, I shall await you and your second on the field of honor – for I suppose that, having been summoned from the grave to do battle with wizards, I am now adequately equipped to fight a duel with one."

Voldemort considered briefly, and then waved his hand. "Be it so," he said. "I have misjudged you, it seems. Return to your graves, men of Dixie; I shall find more zealous defenders of blood purity."


End file.
